


In the Cold Light of Day

by Brite



Category: Fast and the Furious Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Brian O'Conner is an emotional time bomb, Canon-Typical Violence, DSS Agent Brian O'Conner, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:02:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 24,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24116953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brite/pseuds/Brite
Summary: “I thought you quit.”Brian flicked ash off the end of his cigarette, watching the embers flare briefly before fading into the obscurity of the gray dawn light. “I say the same thing every time I sleep with you and look where we are,” he murmured, the downward curve of his lips deepening as a broad hand reached over his shoulder, snagging the last of the smoldering length and grinding it out on the wrought iron railing of the balcony.
Relationships: Brian O'Conner/Dominic Toretto, Luke Hobbs/Brian O'Conner
Comments: 81
Kudos: 214





	1. Nicotine nightmares

**Author's Note:**

> Working title: I wanna see Brian O'Conner in form fitting clothing and a thigh holster but we ran into a lot of porn and feelings before we got there...

“I thought you quit.”

Brian flicked ash off the end of his cigarette, watching the embers flare briefly before fading into the obscurity of the gray dawn light. “I say the same thing every time I sleep with you and look where we are,” he murmured, the downward curve of his lips deepening as a broad hand reached over his shoulder, snagging the last of the smoldering length and grinding it out on the wrought iron railing of the balcony.

Luke tossed the spent butt into the black of the night, his hand sliding warm and rough over Brian’s shoulder, down his arm, and then in against his flank. He spread his fingers, the heat off his palm soaking into the technicolor bruise that spanned his hip to his rib, quieting the ache there.

For a moment Brian wished Luke would curl his fingers, dig his nails in, drive the breath from him—make the phantom pain in his chest solid. “You gonna be okay, here?” Luke asked, his other hand sliding slowly up and down Brian’s back, cataloging every rounded vertebra.

Brian’s lungs seized on their next draw of salt laden mist, the white capped rumble of waves a sudden roar in his ears. Luke must’ve felt the way his every muscle locked up because he stopped rubbing his back, his arm winding thick around Brian’s middle instead, shoring him up even as he leaned away and rested his head against the railing. “I don’t know,” Brian said, surprised at the steadiness of the words.

When he’d transferred into the DSS after the clusterfuck that was Miami, the intake paperwork had asked for a list of places he might be considered persona non grata. Barstow had been his first entry, Los Angeles second, though not for lack of reason. It didn’t seem to matter that he’d made a living cleaning up carnage and crime in the slums of Brazil and Nicaragua and a medley of countries that all ended in –stan. He’d felt wrong footed ever since the mission file hit his desk in DC, and here, in a beachfront condo rented on tax payer dimes, with arguably one of the best mattresses he’d slept on in years, he felt like he’d rather be waterboarded again than have to see the sun rise and cast light over the city.

Luke leaned forward, his chest a blanket of heat across Brian’s back, making him take his weight. “If you can’t handle this, you need to tell me. Say the word and I’ll send you back east,” Luke’s breath fell hot and damp against Brian’s ear, teeth dragging against the jutting tendon in his neck and sinking into the junction of his shoulder with just enough force make Brian shiver.

“Get fucked,” Brian spit, his fingers flexing to grip the railing as Luke pressed into the bruise on his side in retaliation, a fission of rage kindling low in his gut. Like hell if he was going to bend over and take it, let Luke think he couldn’t do his fucking job because of some ancient fucking history. He tried to plant his feet, swing his hips back and buck the other man off, but Luke knew his tricks, planted his feet wide and let the dead weight of him kill any momentum Brian might find. Instead, all Brian managed to do was grind his ass back against the thick, heavy heat of Luke’s hardening cock.

“You first,” Luke purred, the fat head of his cock caught against Brian’s already tender rim and the fight went out of him, gooseflesh prickling across his arms as he tightened his grip and let his head hang, closing his eyes against the light pollution of the looming city.

Luke’s hand slid down from the bruise, traced the sharp curve of his hip and landed a stinging slap against his ass that made Brian gasp and exhale a chuckle. “I am gonna quit one of these days, what’re you gonna do then?” Brian murmured, shifting his weight back as Luke gripped the still stinging flesh, pulling it aside and spearing his cock past the over sensitized ring of muscle and plowing into the satin heat of Brian’s ass, finding it still slick with his own cum.

“Keep dreaming O’Conner,” Luke grunted, planting one hand on the railing for leverage, easing near all the way out before slamming back home. He set a brutal pace, the slap of skin and panting breaths drowning the unwanted call of a familiar ocean. Every instroke felt like a match catching, Brian swung his hips back to meet Luke’s thrusts, desperate for that spark to catch fire but just fucking unable to get there, tipping back and forth between pain and pleasure as Luke stripped his cock raw with a calloused fist.

“Why can’t you just learn to let the fuck go?” Luke asked, his hips stuttering, forehead pressed against Brian’s shoulder as he tried to ride him out. “Just fucking say it, O’Conner.”

Brian let his head sink further, boneless, his lower lip trapped between his teeth and worried it bloody. “Fuck,” he hissed, jaw going slack, long faded memories of the smell of grill smoke and lime slicked lips rising in an unforgiving tide. “Dom…”

Luke kept mercifully silent, his only reply to drag a blunted nail over the weeping slit of Brian’s swollen cockhead. “Dom—” Brian moaned, heat coiling tight at his core. Back bowed, balls drawing up viciously tight, his seed spilled hot over Luke’s fist, ass clenching like a vice.

Luke grunted in response, driving in twice more before spilling into Brian. His hips rolled in short thrusts as he milked his orgasm, his fist still tight and gliding over Brian to pump him through his own. Like a car eased to the line, they stilled, chests heaving and breaths still loud in the quiet of the pre-dawn light.

“Fuck,” Brian murmured, his legs shaking.

“Fuck,” Luke agreed, giving Brian’s softening cock a squeeze for the sheer pleasure of being a dick.

“I hate you,” Brian groaned, his hips jolting forward of their own volition. He cracked open an eye, to glare at Luke, using his heel to crush a few of his toes for good measure. Chuckling, Luke gave his ass a gentler slap, easing out and heading back into the room to grab a warm rag and clean up.

Brian rolled his eyes, letting the balcony railing take his weight as he leaned forward to pillow his head on his arms. The sky was lightening, fog rising in the bay, the promise of a hazy morning drizzle cloyingly sweet in the air. For all that his chest ached, and his stomach churned— his blood sang with a sense of belonging.

He’d lived a lifetime away from the places and people that had once made this city home and it still felt like he’d never left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why is the DSS in LA?
> 
> Where is Team Toretto? 
> 
> Will Brian ever wear a shirt that fits? Will he ever wear a thigh holster?
> 
> Does anyone but me want to know?


	2. A near miss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I think,” Luke said, sliding back into passenger’s side of their rented gray suburban, “you’re the biggest masochist I know.”
> 
> Brian grunted noncommittally, snatching up the chilled can of NOS from the cup holder as soon as Luke relinquished it. He’d given them up after leaving Miami, coffee the more accessible choice when working assignments abroad. But Luke was right, he was nothing if not a glutton for punishment. While the shit tasted like battery acid and hit him like a gut punch, it was the most awake he’d felt since before South America had chewed them up and spit them back out.

“You look like shit,” Mac drawled, kicking a chair out for Brian as he ambled into the war room. Fusco and Chato rounded out the other side of the table, files spilled out in front of them, a map of the state and outlying regions tacked up to the whiteboard and feathered with sticky flags. Elena was plucking them off, the crease between her brow growing deeper every time Luke added another, oblivious to her editing.

“Late night or early morning?” Mac asked, leering between Brian and the broad expanse of Luke’s back.

Brian rolled his eyes and took a long draw off his coffee. He was far from the only one sporting shadows under his eyes, and the nature of his relationship with Luke wasn’t exactly a secret. Still, there was no need to the feed the inferno that was Macroy’s imagination.

“Both, from the sounds of it,” Fusco said, his dark eyes flat as he looked at Brian over the lip of his own coffee mug. “Those walls aren’t as thick as you’d think.”

Brian shrugged, swallowing another mouthful of coffee. “If the weekend in Acapulco didn’t teach you not to share a wall with us, I can’t help you, there’s no fixing stupid,” he said, cracking a thin smile when he saw Luke’s shoulders twitch with smothered laughter out of the corner of his eye.

“He’s got a point,” Chato said, smirking at Fusco. “You don’t see me or Mac even sharing the same floor as them.”

“Riveting as this all is, we have a job to do here,” Luke cut in, turning away from the board and leveling a look at the table. His eyes lingered briefly on the empty space beside Brian, the quiet in the room growing heavy, Wilkes’s absence still bloody and raw like the hole that’d been blown through him.

“The BOLO we put out on Fenix’s car paid off,” Elena said, tossing a set of grainy, low res CC-TV grabs onto the table. “Two weeks ago, an agent assigned to the consulate in Tijuana spotted it cruising local drags and called it in. No positive ID yet, but the general description is a match.”

“We’ve chased this fucker from Argentina, through Brazil, and out Venezuela—what the fuck does he want to camp out in Mexicali for?” Mac asked, snatching up one of the photos and sneering at its uselessness. The pixilated, gray scale blur could be the ’72 Gran Torino they’d been hunting, but depending on how hard you squinted it could have been a Firebird or an Impala, or a half dozen other muscle cars from the same era.

“Argentina was the start of the pipeline,” Luke said, tracing the route they’d run from nearly the southernmost tip of South America back toward the states. “As it flows north it picks up product, and when it flows south it brings back money and in between—”

“Someone’s buying,” Brian supplied, dragging the nail of his thumb against his coffee cup and leaving scores down the side of the styrofoam. “That’s why Wilkes and three spooks are dead, and a thumb-drive full of security intel is missing, they’re making a play for the border.”

“Well they’re going to need at least two new drivers before they do, you and Wilkes made sure of that much,” Fusco said, tension drawing his shoulders up as he leaned over the table, sorting through the mess and coming up with the mug shots for the guys they’d picked off. For a moment Brian was back in that canvas covered Humvee. His hands tacky with cooling blood, the gasping rattle of Wilkes’s sucking chest wound gone quiet, a burning Venezuelan slum shrinking to nothing their rearview. 

“ _O’Conner_.”

A calloused hand took Brian by the nape of his neck and shook gently, calling him back. He blinked, surfacing from the memory, the specter of it lingering like lead in his veins. Mac gave the back of Brian’s neck another squeeze, anchoring him to the present.

Brian glanced over but Mac just tipped his chin toward the end of the table where Luke was looming, lips pressed thin and a crease starting to deepen between his brows, that let Brian know that wasn't the first time Luke had called his name. “Braga’s not just out for drivers, he needs the best, guys that never lose. Wasn't that your specialty?”

Brian dropped his gaze, scrubbing a hand over his face and feeling the lingering exhaustion of sleepless nights prickle beneath the gossamer mask of nicotine and caffeine. “It isn’t as simple as rolling up to the drag,” he said, finally looking up at Luke. “There isn’t a driver in town that doesn’t know my face, they’d sooner shoot me than talk to me. There’s no element of surprise and there’s no room to get it wrong, we won’t get another shot.”

“Alright, so we sniff out the most likely candidates,” Chato clapped his hands together, leaning back in his chair, entirely unfazed. “Who're the usual suspects?”

* * *

“I think,” Luke said, sliding back into passenger’s side of their rented gray suburban, “you’re the biggest masochist I know.”

Brian grunted noncommittally, snatching up the chilled can of NOS from the cup holder as soon as Luke relinquished it. He’d given them up after leaving Miami, coffee the more accessible choice when working assignments abroad. But Luke was right, he was nothing if not a glutton for punishment. While the shit tasted like battery acid and hit him like a gut punch, it was the most awake he’d felt since before South America had chewed them up and spit them back out.

“See anything?” Brian asked, setting the can back in the cup holder only after he’d downed half of its contents. He could feel his gums vibrating—or maybe those were the roots of his teeth dissolving.

“Fake Rolexes, faker tits, and a lot of questionable neon paint jobs,” Luke said, cracking open a bottle of water and setting it pointedly beside the NOS can. “You really ran in one of those chintzy life-size hot wheels?”

Brian nodded, lips quirked into a lopsided smirk. “She was a ’95 Supra, in Lamborghini orange with neon green detailing, best car I ever fucking drove.”

“What happened to it?” Luke asked, shimmying down into the buttery leather of the seat, settling in for another six grueling hours of surveillance.

“I gave him the keys,” Brian said, his shoulders twitching in the barest of shrugs. “His car was totaled, and the heat was coming down fast. She wasn’t inconspicuous, but she ran.” Looking over, Brian cracked a wistful smile that did nothing to ease the just-sucked-a-lemon look that Luke got whenever he mentioned Dom. “Dom probably sold her off first chance he got once he cleared the border, I bought him as much time as I could, but that car was too hot to be anything but parts before long.”

Luke shook his head slowly, then, through his teeth, “They wanted to make an example out of you, they were going to send you upstate.” His dark eyes found Brian’s, the intensity of them making the hair on the back of Brian’s neck prickle. “You wouldn’t have lasted the month it’d have taken to get you arraigned.”

“Tanner wouldn’t have let that happen,” Brian said, a beat too late to sound certain.

“O’Conner, if I didn’t know you better…” Luke shook his head, reclining the seat further and fixing his eyes back on the distant taupe block that was Toretto’s Market. “At least he didn’t waste it,” he said, stealing a glance at their logbook, dates, times, and cars scrawled in rows down the paper in Brian’s sloppy chicken scratch. All the old faces from borrowed LAPD files had come and gone over the days they’d spent parked down the block, Toretto himself the lone exception.

“Dom’s a lot of things,” Brian said, the look in his eyes still too distant for Luke’s liking, “a fool isn’t one of them. He knew what he wanted in the end—always said he’d rather die than go back in.” He leaned forward, draping his arms over the wheel and resting his chin there, still in a way that Luke thought looked more pained than calm.

The sun sunk slow toward the horizon, dragging the sweltering heat with it. Three more NOS cans laid crushed on the floorboards, the bottle of water Luke bought still idle and only half drunk in the cupholder. “Let’s call it,” Luke said, trying in vain to stretch a kink out of his back while in the confines of the passenger seat. Toretto’s sister had handed over counter duties and it seemed a safe bet that the old woman doing needle point while her teenage grandson washed the front windows wasn’t in the running to be a high-speed drug mule.

“You sure? Mrs. Perez has a wicked 02 Odyssey minivan,” Brian said, cracking a smile as he turned over the engine and slid them away from the curb. He took a new, random, slew of turns—a hard habit they’d picked up down south. But, like they had for the three nights before, they ended up on the uphill incline of Kensington.

The others weren’t surveilling Johnny Trans’s, Edwin’s, or Hector’s homes, none of them thought they’d be inclined to bring that sort of heat to their own doorstep. Brian had crafted this final loop without suggestion and Luke refrained from comment because that first night Brian drove by 1327 and didn’t find a tall, dark specter made physical, his shoulders eased a bit and the distant look in his eyes focused minutely. It was like he wore the weight of his past like a noose and it tightened the longer he stared his ghosts in the face, but here, this brief moment of finding nothing amiss released him until the cycle began anew the next morning.

At least, it usually did. “Fuck—” Luke grunted emphatically as the seatbelt pulled tight, his weight tipped forward by Brian’s lead foot on the brake instead of the gas. Sitting at the intersection, dead still at a green light, blinker on to turn, it wasn’t hard to spot what had brought Brian up short. Up the hill, it was teaming with people. Tables, lawn chairs, and grills pulled out into driveways and on the sidewalk, even in the road—a block party in full swing.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Brian breathed, his fingers flexing where he held the steering wheel, white knuckled. Luke tracked Brian’s gaze, his pulse ratcheting up at the sight of satin green Gran Torino parked at the curb. Tearing his eyes away, Luke scanned the crowd.

Fenix, beer in hand, stood beside one of grills, the patch of white bandage on his shoulder hiding Brian’s missed shot. Leon didn’t seem to be paying much attention, his focus on not burning dinner, but Vince and Letty both had angled in to listen to whatever pitch he was making.

“Let’s go,” Luke said, voice low and firm. He waited a beat, but Brian was still as stone, staring openly as the light in front of them turned yellow and then red. “O’Conner—"

“We can take him.”

Luke winced at the jagged edge in Brian’s voice. Rage bled from his every pore, an oil slick of grief and guilt that’d been waiting to catch fire ever since they’d gone into Venezuela seven and came out six.

“We’ve been looking for him for months and he’s _right_ _here_ , Hobbs,” Brian jerked around in his seat, to look at him. His pupils were blown, the hunger that lived where Brian’s heart should have been etched into every shadow and line on his face. The tires started to roll, Brian’s foot easing off the brake as they inched into the intersection, light still red.

“Don’t do this O’Conner,” an iron fist gripped at Luke’s insides and twisted them savagely at the dawning look of betrayal on Brian’s face. “I want him too, but Fenix takes us to Braga, that’s the plan, that’s _always_ been the plan.”

Brian turned away, the tendon in his neck pulling taut as he gritted his teeth. He reached for the gear shift, gripping it like they weren’t in a rented automatic. Luke knew without a doubt Brian could do it, automatic or manual, rice rocket or rental, he could weave through that crowd and crush Fenix between the front grill and the Toretto’s concrete retaining wall without flinching. Luke reached out, gripping Brian’s arm at the joint, digging his fingers in hard enough to bruise.

Nothing as flimsy as a plan had never stood in Brian’s way, the only thing stopping him was the vice like grip that Luke had on him that kept him from turning and the distant glow of headlights coming at them from the opposite lane. “Wilkes wouldn’t have wanted it this way,” Luke growled, tightening his hold, the distant blur of the headlights sharpening as they got closer.

“Wilkes is dead,” Brian said hollowly. “ _I_ was covering him, _I_ missed, and _he_ died.” His voice climbed higher, high enough Luke was glad for the distant rumble of stereos and shrieking kids to drown them out.

Luke stole another glance out the windshield, the car now visible behind the headlight’s halo, the other driver too busy with a cellphone to notice the fucking four door SUV in his way. “O’Conner,” he sucked in a quick breath and then through his teeth, _“Brian!”_

Just as he’d braced to leap the console and wrest control for himself, Luke was thrown back into his seat. The car jerked and for a moment he thought they’d been hit but the momentum kept rolling, tires squealing, and Brian screaming a long-bottled roar of rage as the SUV flew backwards in reverse. Brian tore out of his grip, rubber streaking asphalt as he swung an about face into the correct lane and blew the next four lights gunning the engine to its limits and skirting collisions with opposing traffic by the skin of his teeth.

Luke knew better than to tell him to slow down, telling Brian to do anything he wasn’t already planning to do was an exercise in futility. They hit the 110 going 90, Brian sliding seamlessly through gaps that seemed impossible to make. With every mile they put behind them the needle on the speedometer eased back.

Brian swung into the condo’s parking garage and slid into a space beside the three other identical rentals. Chato, Fusco, Mac, and Elena were gathered round, shooting the shit over street tacos, the conversation coming to an abrupt stop when Brian flung open his door and slammed it shut.

“Woah, O’Conner, where’s the fire?” Mac asked, trying to catch him but stopping short when he saw the vivid red, finger shaped bruises starting to bloom on Brian’s arm. “Yo, what the fuck?” He asked, turning to look at Luke with clear alarm.

Luke shrugged, picking up the pace and ignoring the looks from his team as he went after Brian, getting in front of him, “Let’s talk about this.”

“Nothing to say,” Brian said flatly, shoving past Luke. The power, hidden under his lean cut, was always enough to surprise Luke when he met the wrong end of it. He rolled back on the balls of his feet, forced to balance on his heels.

Brian took a few steps past him before finding something to say and half turning back; the long shadows thrown by the garage’s fluorescents lending him an unearthly halo. “Actually, find somewhere else to sleep tonight,” he shot over his shoulder before slamming through the door and disappearing down the hall.

* * *

Mia looked up from her textbook when she heard the squeal of brakes, the hairs on her arms prickling to attention in anticipation of the sound of colliding metal. For as long as they’d lived here, no matter how much signage the city put up, they never went more than a month or two without some kind of accident down at the intersection. After the neighborhood caught on that she was in med school, she’d become the de facto first responder too. Setting the book aside, she got up from the porch swing and walked down the steps to get a better look down the road. She wasn't the only one, heads turned all up and down the block, a few stereos dropping the volume to see if they were do for the requisite _bang_. 

Behind her the boards of the porch groaned beneath heavier footfalls. “Accident?” Dom asked, brow furrowed in concern as he came down the steps.

Mia shook her head, leaning into the arm he draped around her shoulders, “Sounded like it might be, but there wasn’t a bang, and no one’s come running for Dr. Toretto.”

Dom chuckled, sound warm and deep, “No? Must’ve been a near miss.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, now it's more plot than porn! 
> 
> Still crawling my way toward Brian in a tight shirt and thigh holster, we'll get there, I promise. 
> 
> Much love and appreciation for the comments and kudos, I'd love to here your thoughts on this chapter too!


	3. Panna cotta & thigh holsters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Walking into the garage, he knew he was late, and five heads snapped toward him in unison when he pushed open the door. Mac and Fusco were flushed, noses nearly touching and fingers jabbed into vests, Elena and Chato unwilling babysitters waiting to pry them apart if it went beyond aggressive chest poking.
> 
> It wasn’t hard to figure out they’d been arguing the finer points of whether or not to just leave his ass here, of which Fuso was surely in favor of and Mac viciously opposed. Those lines had long been drawn, but judgement came from on high, and much to Fusco’s chagrin, it rarely fell out of Brian’s favor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cautionary note for the singular use of an anti-LGBTQ+ slur, you know the one, it's canon.

Brian had dragged himself out of bed at the ass crack of dawn and taken the rental out himself, stranding Luke with the others while he sat watch on DT’s alone. After seeing Vince and Letty rubbing elbows with Fenix the night before, he’d half expected to catch him coming into the shop for a last-minute tune-up or NOS top-off. It’d been hours and but the only customer they’d had all day was a heavy-set, middle-aged man with a two-seater crisis convertible that had been viciously keyed.

Brian had figured it was a day wasted when a kid with a beat-up rice rocket and pocket change pulled up just a half-hour before closing. DT’s wasn’t a stranger to tuning-up lost causes, though Dom had always taken great pains to try and tell the kids that there was more to winning than flashy mods. His advice had rarely been heeded.

Vince was usually the first to sniff out the quick buck of a buster with loose change and less than half an idea of how their car ran. He’d never _not_ seen Vince upsell on a tweak of the suspension system, a cannister of NOS, or a decal of a busty woman in a dental floss bikini. From what Brian remembered, it’d always been a quick sell, busters sent on their way with that cocky jut of their chin that’d last until they got smoked.

When Vince emerged from the bay, holding the kid by the collar of his shirt and all but shoved him back out onto the street where he’d parked, Brian perked up a bit. The kid was empty handed, spitting insults Brian couldn’t hear before throwing open his car door and peeling out down the road. With a bare moment of thought, Brian threw the rental in drive and went after him.

Three blocks later the kid rolled a stop sign and Brian lit him up with the red and blues clipped to the front visors. Poor kid was sweating bullets by the time Brian ambled his way up to the driver’s side window. Chato had run his plate after a quick texted request and Brian had gotten back a list of unpaid speeding citations the length of his arm and the lovely little notice that the kid’s license had been revoked the year before.

“Afternoon,” Brian greeted, pulling the chain of his badge out from beneath his shirt so the kid could watch the shield sway gold and menacing around his neck. “I gotta admit I don’t know that I’ve ever pulled someone over with nearly two-grand in outstanding tickets, that’s got to be some kind of record.”

“I workin’ on—” The kid started, doe eyed and white knuckled at the prospect of adding another fine to the mounting pile, but Brian waved off whatever excuse was coming, flicking his sunglass up to rest on the crown of his head. “I get it, I do, it’s hard to know where to start when you’re that far in the hole,” he said, cracking his most sympathetic smile. “I could make it go away,” he offered, watching the kid’s eyes widen and then narrow in suspicion—not a complete idiot then.

“Look I dunno what kinda fag stuff you’re into but I’m not gonna—”

Brian laughed, so sudden and sharp, it shut the kid up. “You’re not my type,” he promised, taking a breath to steady himself again, “I’m looking to pad the pension a little, make a couple bucks betting on the local racing scene. A guy with a car like this and speeding tickets like you, you’ve got to know a little something, huh?” He cocked his head to the side, laying the flattery on thick and watching it grease the gears of the kid’s ego.

“You’ll get my tickets erased, all of ‘em?” He hedged, drumming his fingers uncertainly on the wheel.

“Every penny, long as you help me make one,” Brian lied, bald-faced and unrepentant.

* * *

The kid's info held up. Braga’s audition was in a week, which meant the window of opportunity to get to Vince and Letty was small and getting smaller. Taking them at the garage was too risky, Mia and the others would raise hell and word would get back to every racer on the circuit before and hour had passed. Their best, and only option, was to raid the house.

“Toretto is gone, you’re sure they’re still doing this weekly cookout thing?” Mac asked, brow furrowed as he looked at the property blueprint Elena had pulled from old renovation permits logged with the city’s office of compliance. With only one gate, the yard’s entry was a bottle neck with potential for disaster.

“All of the others are here,” Brian scrubbed a hand over his face, eyes roaming listlessly over the surveillance photos of the Toretto crew that he and Luke had pulled over the past few days. “Sunday barbecues are family only. It’s the best chance we have at getting all of them at one time without blowing cover.”

“How many?” Fusco asked, counting faces as he scanned the board.

“Five—Letty Ortiz and Vince Moreno are the priority because they’ve had direct contact with Fenix. The others are necessary collateral,” Luke answered, picking out the clearest headshots of all of the prints and lining them up.

“Any heat?” Chato asked, picking up Vince’s file and sneering at it in a way that made the hair on Brian’s neck stand on end. His fingers itched to snatch it back, he’d had a hard time handing any of the files over, and he’d felt Luke’s gaze hot on his back when he’d carried them out from where he’d stashed them in the closet of their room.

“Unlikely,” Brian said, shaking his head as he closed Mia’s folder and pulled it to his corner of the table, setting a half full NOS can on top of it.

“But not impossible,” Luke cut-in, crossing his arms over his chest. “Write-up said they confiscated a shotgun during Toretto’s last encounter with the law, it’s still tied up in evidence, but it wouldn’t surprise me if his crew replaced it sometime in the past few years.”

“They’re not—” Brian stopped short, Luke catching his gaze, a sing dark brow arching upward.

“Not what?” Luke asked after Brian failed to fill the silence. He relaxed his shoulders, letting his arms fall away from where they were crossed over his chest, watching Brian patiently. 

Brian stared back, feeling off balanced in a way he hadn’t been in a years. “They might be looking to run for Braga but they don’t know who he is, or what he’s done. They’re not bad people, they aren’t dangerous.”

His words hung for a moment and Brian watched the team trade skeptical glances. Brian understood their hesitance, in the four years he’d ran with the DSS they’d never gone after a target and not been met with some volley of gunfire or explosives, but Dom or no Dom, Brian knew the crew just didn’t run that way. They’d only lash out if the team drew first blood.

“So,” Mac hedged, looking between Brian and Luke with clear uncertainty, “We’re going in plain clothes?”

“It’d draw the least attention,” Brian agreed, lifting his shoulders in the barest of shrugs. “Your vest isn’t going to save you from a socket wrench,” he cracked a faint smile and looked back at Luke, the levity falling flat when he saw the pinched look on his face.

“We don’t take chances,” Luke said, weighing each word with uncharacteristic caution, his voice laden with authority that he rarely felt the need to wield. Brian’s gaze narrowed at the unspoken rebuke, but he kept his mouth shut, lips pressed in a thin line.

“We’ll run with light tac. 21:00 we head out with vests and sidearms, head on a swivel,” Luke said, scanning the room for nods of agreement.

Brian was the lone holdout, pushing his chair back. “I need a smoke,” he said, waving Mac and Chato off when they tried to call him back to the table.

* * *

Smoke billowed gray and bitter from between Brian’s lips, dark bellied storm clouds piling thick overhead bringing an early dusk, the pit and pat of the rain swallowed by the distant crash of waves. Rain smelt different here, briny and sour, the beauty and the sins of the city too entwined to tease apart. It was the one point he was willing to concede to Barstow, there was nothing in that neon glazed hell hole worth missing except the smell of damp earth and creosote.

Behind him the hinges of the fire door he’d propped open shrieked in protest.

“Am I still in the dog house?”

Brian took a long drag and let the breath out slow, flicking ash off the low burning butt into a puddle and looking up at Luke from under the hood of his sweatshirt. “Depends,” he said, leaning back against the wall, “how long did Fusco’s snoring keep you up?”

“Long enough,” Luke leaned over, bracing his weight on the flat of his forearm and boxing Brian in against the wall. He reached down with his other hand, knocking the smoldering remains of the cigarette from between Brian’s fingers.

Close as they were, Brian could see the sleepless creases beneath Luke’s eyes, though the warm complexion he’d been gifted saved him from the stark, bruise like coloring that was developing under Brian’s own. There was a flintiness in that dark gaze as it raked over Brian, sharp but brittle in a way that made gooseflesh prickle up Brian’s arms.

“The hell is the matter with you?” Luke asked gruffly. “If you weren’t as good at you job as you are, you’d have been out on your fucking ass for the little stunt you pulled this morning.”

“Yeah?” Brian challenged, cocking an eyebrow. “Who’d drive? Chato?”

Luke couldn’t hide his wince, the sting of losing an armored, all terrain Humvee, over a cliffside in Brazil after a mishandled parking brake still somewhat fresh. He took a deep breath, dark eyes turned skyward, begging patience from a God Brian didn’t believe in. “I’m serious, O’Conner,” Luke said, gritting the words through his teeth, brow furrowed, and his lips pulled into a tight scowl. “Whatever it is you think you owe these people, whatever chip you’ve got on your shoulder, you need to let it go. I’ve buried one friend already chasing this asshole, I’ll put you in cuffs and ship you back to DC on the next flight before I bury you too.”

“ _Kinky_ ,” Brian murmured under his breath, the urge to deflect as instinctive as breathing. Luke’s fist reared back and slammed into the stucco, the plaster caving in, in knuckle shaped dents. Brian blinked, jarred slightly by the sudden buzz in his ear.

“This isn’t a fucking _joke_ , B!” Luke’s breath was hot on his face, jaw clenched as tension radiated off him in waves. “It’s been _five years_ , you don’t know them, you never did, and if you get shot because you wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt—"

Brian took a moment, letting his eyes close briefly before he tipped his head back to meet Luke’s gaze. “Hey,” he said softly, making a conscious effort to relax his shoulders and soften the hard line of his spine into a casual slouch. Reaching out, he slid a hand around the back of Luke’s neck, drawing him into a kiss.

For a moment Luke was stone beneath him, unyielding, but Brian held fast, letting the warmth of Luke’s lips bleed into his. Brian felt the grip on his wrist loosen and fall away, heat trailing down his flank as Luke rubbed his side before his hand settled hot and heavy over his hip. Luke pressed in against him, closing what little space had separated them and then some. Brian’s breath hitched when his back met the wall, Luke’s tongue taking the opening to slide slick over his own.

They stayed like that, wrapped around each other, trying to find that give between them that had so far let them bend backwards without breaking one another. Breathless, lips raw and tingling, Brian turned his head just enough to break the contact. He let his forehead fall against the soft junction of Luke’s neck and shoulder, breathing in the sharp tang of sweat and the Armani cologne he was partial to. His stomach clenched because this should’ve been enough, if he had any ounce of sense or self-preservation Luke would’ve been _more_ than enough, but he wasn’t. He wasn’t bay rum aftershave, grill smoke, and sun warmed leather. He wasn’t back seats, night surfs, or oil stained nails raking fire over a sunburn.

“Let’s talk about this,” Luke said softly, the rise and fall of his chest evening out under Brian’s cheek as he caught his breath, “You don’t have to come tonight.”

Brian sighed, balling his fists in the fabric of Luke’s shirt, “I’m _fine_.”

“Everyone in that house probably wants your head on a platter, just sit this one out, the team will bring them in—"

“I said I’m fine,” Brian snapped, straightening up and pushing Luke off, a chill running down his spine as the brisk coastal breeze whipped between the sudden space. He looked up, squaring his shoulders, every wall he’d dropped slamming right back up into place.

“Yeah?” Luke asked, the chuckle that rumbled in his chest dark with frustration. “Keep telling yourself that, you’re not convincing anyone else,” Luke said, crossing his arms over his chest.

“The way I’ve seen it, O’Conner, I don’t know that you’ve been fine a day in your goddamn life,” he shook his head and stepped back. “You’ve got two hours, if you’re not in gear you’re not going,” Luke said, heading back inside through the fire door, slamming it with a brutal whine of the hinges and leaving Brian alone with the rain.

* * *

Their room had been empty when he’d come in, Luke’s gear was gone, and if Brian had to put money on it he’d guess Luke was somewhere with Fusco or Elena trying to get his head on straight before they went to work. Turning up the speaker on something bass heavy and loud, Brian jumped in the shower, running a generous amount of shampoo through his hair, and brushing his teeth with a toothbrush he wasn’t entirely sure was his. Luke hated when he smelt like an ashtray, but he hated it even more when Brian made the car smell like one too.

Brian scrubbed the taste and feel of Luke off his skin and out of his mouth. He was angry, though he couldn’t pinpoint any one reason why— heat coiled tight and leaden at the center of his chest, burning him up from the inside—but the team didn’t call him Iceman for nothing and he let his lingering demons rinse off with the suds.

Steam poured out of the bathroom when he opened the door, his feet tracking wet footprints over the carpet as he padded to the bed. Luke had left clothes out for him, black briefs, black jeans, a black compression t-shirt, and on top of it all, a plain black bulletproof vest. Normally, the passive aggressiveness of it would have rankled Brian, but he boxed it up, just like the anger, and set it aside for another night.

He suited up with a single-minded fluidity that only came from years of practice, each layer making him calmer, creating a level of distance he’d been too green to cultivate that last time he’d faced Dom’s crew head-on. By the time he’d laced up his boots, scuffed and still crusted with blood and Venezuelan mud, there was a familiar quiet in his head.

It faltered for a split second when he pulled open the nightstand drawer, taking the familiar weight of his SIG Sauer in hand. Chato, Elena, and Mac favored Glocks, Fusco preferred to work with long range weapons on principle but carried a Beretta out of necessity—it was Luke who carried another SIG, a habit from his SEAL days, and he’d gifted Brian one four years ago. Mac had joked that was where their relationship had tipped into something more, and Brian had wondered on late nights at the range, with Luke’s hands on his hips and the whisper of stubble against his neck if being handed a sidearm wasn’t so different from being handed a set of keys.

The weight and recoil had been a bitch to adjust to, but Brian hadn’t carried anything else as his main sidearm since, but now, there was a faint buzz of protest that broke through his calm when he picked it up, flexing his fingers where the grip had worn smooth. Before Dom, he’d never fired his gun on the job. Tran had been the first kill he’d ever made, he’d thrown up in the holding cell after being brought in, just thinking about how his body had rag-dolled across the asphalt.

Brian knew the body count on the SIG by heart, fifteen people in the four years he’d carried it, six this year alone— and not once had he ever been sick or shaken afterwards. But the thought of carrying those specters with him to Dom’s door gave him brief moment of pause, before he exhaled sharply and forced the noise back, sinking into the quiet as he strapped on his thigh holster and slid the SIG into place.

He had only two rules in this headspace; protect the team and secure the target.

Walking into the garage, he knew he was late, and five heads snapped toward him in unison when he pushed open the door. Mac and Fusco were flushed, noses nearly touching and fingers jabbed into vests, Elena and Chato unwilling babysitters waiting to pry them apart if it went beyond aggressive chest poking.

It wasn’t hard to figure out they’d been arguing the finer points of whether or not to just leave his ass here, of which Fuso was surely in favor of and Mac viciously opposed. Those lines had long been drawn, but judgement came from on high, and much to Fusco’s chagrin it rarely fell out of Brian’s favor.

Fixing his attention dead ahead, Brian met Luke’s gaze unflinchingly, dark eyes flitting over him from head to toe, clocking his vest and his gun twice before he gave the smallest of nods—tardiness forgiven. “Let’s roll,” Luke said gruffly, taking the keys from Chato and tossing them at Brian.

Brian snatched them out of the air deftly, ambling past Fusco and cracking a cold, crooked smirk. “I win,” he said with false brightness, watching anger flare and cool in the other man’s eyes in the span of a breath before passing him by and climbing into the driver’s seat of the lead SUV.

“One of these days, he’s going to swing at you,” Luke murmured tiredly, settling into the passenger seat, and syncing up the coms.

“I’ll deserve it,” Brian agreed, turning over the engine, “If I’m feeling nice, I’ll let him get in a hit or two before putting him on his ass.”

“I don’t know how LAPD ever let you go, you’re one scary motherfucker,” Mac chimed in from the back, though the toothy grin Brian spotted in the rearview was nothing short of gleeful.

“I didn’t get this scary until after,” Brian said honestly, shifting into drive and pulling out of the garage and losing Fusco in the traffic for the simple pleasure of knowing he could.

* * *

The fiery shades of sunset had given way to dusk, heavier shades of night falling fast as they made the final approach to Kensington. Brian had eased off the gas and let Fusco catch up. They drove by the house once, making note of the cars in the drive and the glow of string lights in the backyard, before sidling up to the curb and cutting the engines.

They waited a couple minutes, watching, but the block was quiet, and they were just a couple dark SUVs at a house prone to having company. Brian had his hand on the door handle when Luke stopped him, calloused fingers closing around the ring of bruises he left the night of the block party, yellowed but still tender.

“Change of plans,” Luke said, the hard set of his jaw telling Brian that this had been anything but a last minute decision. His voice echoed strangely, Brian hearing it out of his mouth and the com. “Elena you’re on me, O’Conner’s gonna stick to the shadows, watch our backs and the exfil route.”

Brian opened his mouth, fury rising like bile up his throat, threatening to thaw the frosty façade he’d built, but Luke’s grip tightened pointedly _, painfully_ , and Brian heard the unspoken command. As quickly as the anger came, it ebbed, training taking hold as he took up post at the back of the line.

They swung wide to avoid setting off the floodlight, going over the side gate in pairs instead of the main one. There was more shrubbery on that side of the yard, darker shadows where the light of the patio didn’t reach. Brian was the last, swinging over and landing in a silent crouch amidst the others.

Luke glanced back at him for one brief moment and then they were off, near silent as they crossed the yard with a soft bend in their knees and a loping stride, guns drawn—the grating techno Jesse was prone to playing over the radio covering any sound of their approach.

Chato was the first to make contact, dropping Letty with a quick knock to the back of her knees, sending her to the grass where they had a brief struggle as she kicked and snarled till he set the barrel of the gun to the back of her head and stilled enough to let him get the zip-cuffs and gag on. Elena had a bit more luck, a slack jawed Jesse too shocked or too stoned to put up a fight as she cuffed him and stuffed the beanie he’d been wearing into his mouth.

Leon had his back to the group, tending the grill. He’d started to turn around when Chato brought down Letty, but Mac was waiting for him. Leon eyed the gun and for a second Brian thought he was going to go quietly, but Leon had at least half a foot on Mac, and he must have found the difference favorable because he struck out with the grill hot spatula, catching Mac’s hand and knocking the gun into the grass.

Brian winced in sympathy, taking a step forward, but Mac didn’t flinch and where Leon had the height, Mac had the weight, and barreled into Leon, dropping him like a sack of potatoes.

His gaze flitted back toward the other gate where Fusco had ambushed Vince as he carried in a fresh six pack. They were both bloodied, Vince with a fat split lip and eyebrow, Fusco’s nose bent brokenly and a deep gash in his cheek that had likely been caused by the one broken bottle of Corona bled dry in the grass, the other five set neatly out of reach. Despite the fight he’d put up, Vince was cuffed, Fusco wrenching his arms high and back to dissuade him from trying to buck free.

It had taken less than two minutes for the team to secure their targets. While the others were corralling the crew at the heart of the yard, securing gags and double-checking cuffs, Brian shifted his gaze to the back door where Luke had unscrewed the porch light and was waiting into shadows.

Mia hadn’t been in the yard when they arrived, but her Honda was at the front of the drive, boxed in by the others. A shadow shifted in the kitchen and when she bumped open the back door with her hip, dark hair piled in a messy bun on top of her head and a dish of panna cotta in hand, it was like stepping back into a memory.

Then, in one swift movement, Luke had one arm around her waist and his other flying up to cover her mouth and cut off her scream. Brian’s vision blurred, ears roaring with the sound of rushing blood and he had to dig his nails into the palm of his hand to hold steady. He knew that Luke had gone for Mia on purpose, had known even before Brian did, that if anyone else on the team had dared to touch her like that, his already frayed restraint he had would have snapped like a thread.

It was the clear sound of shattering glass that brought Brian fully back, cream and berries splattered across the patio with gleaming, pointed shards. Across the yard, the team stilled, all eyes tracking to the broken dish and ears straining to hear sounds of a curious neighbor coming out to check on things.

But when the footfalls came, they came from inside the house.

“Mia?”

Luke’s head snapped around, his gaze searching out Brian in the dark, oblivious to the Mia thrashing in his hold. Brian was frozen, half crouched in the shadows, the roaring back in his ears, his vision tunneling down to near nothing.

A broad shouldered silhouette, back lit by the kitchen lights grew larger and larger in the frame of the screen door before Dominic Toretto stepped out.

For a moment everything slowed down. Brian could hear the sluggish beat of his own pulse, felt the slow heave of air punch into his chest with his sharp inhale. For a small eternity he stared at Dom’s half-lit profile, watching his eyes sweep the yard, pausing on the crew cuffed and gagged in the grass, before swinging to settle on the dark shape of Luke where he’d hastily hauled Mia halfway toward the rest of the team.

She was putting up a hell of a fight, kicking and scrambling, her feet tearing up the yard. Luke’s hold was firm but careful, he didn’t want to hurt her, if not for the principle of it then for the fact it would hurt Brian if he did. But his caution was slowing him down.

Brian clocked the one, opening step Dom took, his mouth open in a soundless snarl of fury. Just like that, Brian’s field of vision widened back to normal. He saw the five strides it would take Dom to get to Luke, saw the way Luke was already anticipating the collision, turning, putting his back to Dom to shield Mia from being caught between them. On the defensive, against an enraged Dom, Luke wouldn’t win – not without a bullet on his side.

Brian jolted into motion, crossing the yard at a full sprint. With one stride separating him from Luke, Brian intercepted Dom, coming to a hard stop with one booted foot planted on his instep, the whole of his weight braced into his right leg as they collided. Dom’s weight started to tip forward, over Brian’s knee, and Brian caught his arm at the shoulder, shifting his grip quickly down to his wrist, and using Dom’s own momentum to wrench it up against his back, twisting and steering him face first against the fence.

The yard went still and quiet again, Brian’s chest heaving as he leaned all of his weight against Dom to keep him pinned. “You weren’t supposed to be here,” Brian said breathlessly, knowing he should have been cuffing Dom instead of talking to him, but he couldn’t bring himself to move.

“O’Conner?” The graveled baritone of Dom’s voice came out muffled against the faded wood slats, but Brian could read everything he needed to from high, tense line of his shoulders. He needed to cuff him before Dom decided a dislocated shoulder wasn’t a bad price for freedom, again—he just couldn’t find the coordination for his free hand to do what it needed to.

“Why the fuck are you _here_?” Brian growled in frustration, knowing everything he’d given up all those years ago was now for not.

“B,” it was Luke’s voice this time, low and steady. Brian tore his eyes from the stubbled shadow of Dom’s skull and glanced sideways. Luke was on his left, sans Mia, the others hustling the rest of the crew together to take them out to the SUVs. A calloused hand settled lightly on his own and Brian blinked in surprise, finding his free hand wasn’t free at all, he’d draw his sidearm reflexively, the barrel pressed flush against Dom’s lower back, poised square over a kidney.

Luke leaned in, close enough Brian could feel the whisper of his lips against the shell of his ear. “Get it together, O’Conner.” There was a gravity to the words that slotted that jagged piece of Brian that had broken loose back into place, a patch job at best, but enough that Brian steadied his grip on his gun, put the safety back on, and slid it back into the holster.

They’d separated Jesse and Mia into separate SUVs, their softest targets and pressure points to keep the others in line. It was dangerous to put Dom and Letty together, but Brian figured it was the lesser of two evils as he packed Dom in the back with her and Jesse. For as much as Dom trusted Vince, Letty was the defacto leader in his absence, and if she got loose with Mia all bets were off. Vince, even with Leon’s help, wouldn’t have the brains to get gone and stay gone.

After triple checking the child-locks were on, Brian moved to the driver’s side and it took everything he had to ease the door shut and pull away from the curb slowly. He could feel Dom’s gaze in the rearview but he didn’t dare glance up to meet it. They’d agreed beforehand to take different routes back to the field office, the winding backroads adding an extra twenty minutes to an already hellish drive.

Brian didn’t remember a single turn or stoplight, one minute he was lightheaded and nauseous on the 110 and the next he was nauseous and lightheaded in the dark cover of the garage. The other were already moving, their shadows long in the glow of the headlights.

Mac was talking but Brian couldn’t hear him over the buzz in his ears. The cab lights came on, the doors opening. Brian peeled his hands off the steering wheel, the leather tacky with dried blood, half-moon shaped scabs torn open on his palms. Gripping the handle, he pushed his door open and stepped down, looking around like a dazed sheep.

Vince was jerking around in his cuffs, trying to shake Chato and Fuso. Mia was standing off to the side with Leon and Jesse, mascara had run down her cheeks but she wasn’t crying anymore, just glaring daggers across the spaces at him. Luke was leading Dom out of the SUV, he looked back at Brian, his lips moving but no understandable sound reaching his ears.

“I need a minute,” Brian murmured, waving off whatever Luke had told him, and turning his back on it all. He was going to fucking puke, he could feel it, and it’d be better for everyone if he did it downwind. Getting his body to cooperate was the tricky part. It was like he’d actually turned to ice on the drive back, a cold sweat breaking out on his back and chest, limbs numb and heavy.

The buzz in his ears got louder, muting out the rest of the world. Brian made it two steps before his knees gave out. He heard the crack of his cheek bone reverberate through his own skull as he hit the concrete, but before the pain could register there was just darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of rambling in this one but HEY, THIGH HOLSTER BABY!
> 
> And next chapter you get an interlude with Dom and Luke's POV on their favorite blond. 
> 
> As always, comments and kudos are greatly appreciated. I hope this fic finds you well, and if not, I hope it was a brief reprieve from your battles.


	4. Interlude - Luke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mac was propped up against the wall, arms crossed tightly over his chest, stark white bandages wrapped around his hand. He lifted his head when Luke stopped in front of him, lips pressed thin, brow furrowed. “These small hours of the morning and you don’t have any place better to be than eavesdropping outside of the men’s room?” Luke asked, more tired than anything.
> 
> Mac shrugged, “Elena was worried you two were going to end up doing something stupid.” He shot a meaningful glance back toward the bathroom door, “Guess she was right.”

Luke braced one hand on the smooth ceramic edge of the sink, his head bowed over the basin, cold water dripping off his chin, running down his neck, and soaking into his shirt. He closed his eyes, saw Brian stepping out of the car, a phantom in black. The haze of the fluorescents bleaching the golden hue from his hair, his skin gone sallow and gray, the livid cuff of bruises at the junction of his right elbow standing out in yellow and violet technicolor, his eyes tracking listlessly from side to side.

He could still hear it, the smack of dead weight meeting concrete, the crack of bone breaking. Luke forced a breath through his teeth, opening his eyes, and bringing a handful of his water to mouth to swill out the iron taste of panic from his mouth. He spit and reached for the soap, scrubbing the memory of clammy skin, a thready pulse, and the tacky warmth of Brian's blood from his hands.

The bathroom door swung open and noisily hissed shut. Luke cut an annoyed glance at the mirror, relaxing slightly when he found Fusco’s dark gaze reflected back at him. “What’d the doctor say?” Fusco asked, leaning his weight back against the door, arms crossed over his chest.

Luke snorted, shaking his head as he reached for a paper towel to dry his hands and face. “His blood pressure tanked and his heart rate went with it,” he said, turning around to face him. Someone had set his nose, dried blood still crusted down the front of his vest.

“He fainted?” Fusco asked, not bothering to keep the edge of frustration out of his voice. “We had six in cuffs, at least three with violent offenses on their record, and O’Conner drops like he’s been _shot—_ in the middle of a fucking prisoner transport—because he had to sit through a twenty minute drive with his ex?”

Luke felt the hair along his arms start to stand on end, his pulse ratcheting back up as he listened to Fusco go from incredulous to incensed in the span of a breath. “The fuck is your problem with him?” He asked, eyes narrowing.

“He’s a fuckin’ liability, Hobbs!” He threw his hands up, shaking his head like the answer was obvious. “He doesn’t eat, he doesn’t sleep, he takes off on his own, keeps information for himself, and openly undermines your command. If you didn’t have him gagging on your fuckin’ cock you’d have busted his ass back to DC—"

Luke shoved off the sink, Fusco moving to meet him, but Luke was faster and stronger. He got his fist around the strap of Fusco’s vest and slammed him hard against the wall, pinning him there. “The _only_ reason you’re standing here at all, is because O’Conner saved your skin in Bahrain, and _again_ in Korsakov,” Luke hissed, rage thrumming in his veins, his skin hot with it. “He’s earned his spot on this team, he’s earned our loyalty, and if you can’t see that, then you’re the one who needs to get busted back to DC.”

Fuso dropped his gaze, the fight bleeding out of him. Luke eased his grip, taking two deep breathes before he could bring himself to let go. “I’ve known you longer than almost anyone, so take my advice, brother,” he said, taking Fusco’s chin and forcing him to meet his eyes, the hurt, and the longing lingering in their dark depths as old as their friendship. “That chip on your shoulder, the one you’ve got because he has what you want? You better find some damn way to fill it before it cracks you in half.”

The punch wasn’t unexpected, or unwarranted. Luke faded with the hit, taking a step back because he’d allowed for the one, but he wasn’t going to take a second. He opened his mouth, tested the range of motion of his jaw, the ache sharp but already fading. Fusco shouldered past him, heading out into the hall, by the time Luke followed him the hall was empty—well, almost, empty.

Mac was propped up against the wall, arms crossed tightly over his chest, stark white bandages wrapped around his hand. He lifted his head when Luke stopped in front of him, lips pressed thin, brow furrowed. “These small hours of the morning and you don’t have any place better to be than eavesdropping outside of the men’s room?” Luke asked, more tired than anything.

Mac shrugged, “Elena was worried you two were going to end up doing something stupid.” He shot a meaningful glance back toward the bathroom door, “Guess she was right.” Luke opened his mouth, but before he got a word out, Mac held his hands up in a sign of surrender. “I get it, he was outa line about B, but you shouldn’t have thrown it back in his face.”

Luke sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face, shoulders sagging. “He’s been carrying that torch too long, he’s gonna miss something good for himself, let it pass right by him if he doesn’t pull his head out of his ass.”

“Yeah,” Mac muttered, stealing another look at the door, his face contorting with something too complicated for Luke to decipher when it was there a split second and gone with the next. “I’ll make sure he gets back, Elena and Chato already took off. You even going back tonight, or should I get the nurse to put a cot in B’s room?”

Luke shook his head, “I talked to the doctor, there’s no reason to keep him overnight, and waking up in the infirmary will only piss him off.”

Mac chuckled, soft and warm, a bit of the weight still sitting on Luke’s shoulders easing with the sound of it. “That it will, that it will,” he agreed, fishing around in his pocket with his non-bandaged hand and tossing Luke a set of keys. “You want me to help bring him down?”

“Nah, there’s something I have to check on first, and you guys need the sleep,” Luke said, tucking the keys in one of the pockets on his vest. When he looked up, Mac wasn’t smiling anymore, his lips pressed back into that grim line.

“Just don’t do anything stupid, okay, boss man?” Mac said, a slight tremor running through him. “I know B doesn’t think those guys are dangerous, but Toretto? The way he looked at him?”

“Yeah,” Luke nodded stiffly, his fist flexing at the memory, “I know what you mean.” Dominic Toretto hadn’t said a word since they’d put him in cuffs. His eyes, dark and hungry, had done all the talking. Not once during the drive, or in the garage, had he ever torn his gaze away from Brian.

“I’m serious, Luke,” Mac reached out, giving his shoulder an earnest squeeze. “Don’t underestimate him, whatever he did to Brian, it’s been eating him alive all these years, and if he can bring B to heel by just breathing the same air as him…that’s…I dunno what the fuck that is,” he said, shaking his head ruefully.

“Gravity,” Luke murmured.

“What?” Mac asked, frowning in confusion.

“Nothing, just something O’Conner said a few years ago, it’s nothing,” Luke said, reaching up and squeezing Mac’s hand. “Go find Fuse, it’s been a long night.” 

* * *

When the elevator doors slid shut to take him down to the basement holding cells, Luke knew it was only about to get longer. The field office wasn’t big enough to keep them all separate. They’d put Letty and Mia together, Leon and Jesse too, Vince had only been separated because he’d been violent during transport, even after Toretto had barked at him to stop embarrassing himself. Dom had been isolated at Luke’s request.

The others were sprawled in their cots with borrowed pillows and blankets, but not Dom. He stood a silent vigil, his back braced against the taupe painted cinder block wall, arms crossed over his chest—waiting. He lifted his head only when Luke came to a stop outside of his cell, for just a moment he looked disappointed, like he’d been hoping for someone else. Then his eyes flickered to the bruise now rising on Luke’s jaw, then to the gun strapped to his thigh, and they lingered there long enough that Luke made a mental note to have the agency cleaning crew search the house for guns while they put it back together.

“So, O’Conner’s still a cop?” Dom shook his head slowly before lifting his gaze to meet Luke’s.

“Well it was this or twenty-five to life in Lompoc for second degree murder,” Luke said, shrugging slightly. “He loaned himself out to the FBI, liked his odds better against a drug runner that sent the previous agent back in pieces than he did against Eliza Tran. She’s a DA for Los Angeles County, you know? Has a reputation for being a real hard-ass when her little brother ends up as roadkill on the 110.”

Dom said nothing, but Luke could see the way his fingers were pressing deeper into the meat of his biceps, restraining himself. “You come here lookin’ for an apology?” Dom finally asked, the silence between them having stretched too long.

“No,” Luke said, a wry smile twisting on his lips. “I’ve lived with your ghost for the past four years, figured it was time I got to look you in the eye— see what kind of man could take another, turn ‘em inside out and leave ‘em for dead.”

Dom dropped his gaze, bowing his head with some semblance of guilt—not that Luke would have put money on it being genuine. Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, though only just, he headed for the doors, dimming the lights as he went.

The low timbre of Dom’s voice brought him up short, his hand on the door. His words carried in the tight, dim space, like they were being whispered right into Luke’s ear. He suppressed a shiver, white knuckling the steel of the handle to cement his resolve to not look over his shoulder and check.

“He still came back, didn’t he?” Dom said, sounding more confident than any felon in a cell had the right to. “He came home, and if you think you had anything to do with it, you don’t know the Buster half as well as you think.”

Luke stepped out into the hall and if he slammed the door a little harder than necessary on his way out— well, it was a pleasure to leave Toretto in the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I've never better understood why these two couldn't share a scene in the movies without some sort of explosive, bare knuckle beat-down ensuing, than I do now...having tried to write a full chapter with them and only ending up with like four full sentences worth of interaction. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed the quick turn around in chapter postings, this fic is starting to take over my life. Shout out to #TeamThighHolster, new members always welcome. As always, much love and much appreciation.


	5. Ticking time bomb

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You don’t understand,” Brian sighed, massaging the bridge of his nose.
> 
> “You’re right, I don’t,” Fusco snapped, spinning his chair around to face Brian head on, “I don’t really think any of us do.” Mac reached out, giving Fusco’s shoulder a warning squeeze, only to be violently shrugged off. “He was your mark, right?” Fusco went on, a cruel twist to his smile, dark eyes glinting with poorly hidden disdain. “What’d he do to you, O’Conner? How’d he crack that moral compass of yours and make you go native?” 

“I’m getting really tired of finding you on the floor.”

Brian glanced up from where he was sat, back propped against the balcony railing, watching the waves swell and crash against the shore, the sun a distant memory of pinks and oranges streaking the horizon. “You shouldn’t have let me sleep so long,” he said, unable to muster the energy to not sound as tired as he fucking felt. Scooting over, he made room for Luke to ease down beside him, silently grateful for the thick arm that wrapped around his shoulders and drew him closer into the heat of the other man. He’d stolen a hoodie out of Luke’s bag, was practically swimming in it, but the breeze coming in off the coast was unseasonably cold, and Luke could have sold his furnace like abilities had he been so inclined.

“Doc disagreed,” Luke rumbled, running a calloused hand up and down Brian’s arm. “The way he saw it you were a ticking time bomb, O’Conner. A sleep deprived, dehydrated, and malnourished time bomb.”

“We lost eighteen hours,” Brian snapped, rubbing his temple. The ache from his Pollock painted blue-black cheek was radiating up into his head and down to his jaw and neck. “The race is in _three_ days; we didn’t have eighteen hours to lose.”

“Yeah? Well I brought back dinner, get it all down and we can go down to the field office and get started. Unless you think the ex-cons have an early bedtime?” Luke said, dragging Brian to his feet.

Dinner was a cheap styrofoam clamshell brimming with arroz con polo from the little Cuban dive bar up the beach. Brian got two bites into the tender, seasoned meat before he was all but shoveling it into his mouth with the cheap plastic fork, suddenly very aware of the clawing hunger at the pit of his stomach. After plowing through nearly all of it, he shot a glance at where Luke was sitting on the edge of the bed, watching him with an amused smirk.

“You didn’t happen to bring me a beer for dessert, did you?” Brian asked, cocking an eyebrow as he wiped the corners of his mouth.

Luke snorted a laugh, shaking his head. “You know, I did get you _something_ ,” he said, snagging a water bottle out of the minifridge and bringing it over to the flimsy desk. He cracked off the lid and cocked an eyebrow. “Hand?”

Brian rolled his eyes but obligingly held out his hand, palm up. Luke covered it with his own, pressing two small pills firmly between them, and when he pulled away, the sight of the violently pink tabs of ibuprofen made Brian's stomach roll uneasily, “I don’t—”

“Take them and I’ll get you a coffee on the way,” Luke said, cutting to the quick and hard line of Brian’s caffeine addiction.

“Double shot?” Brian hedged, weighing the pills.

“No,” Luke said flatly.

“Large?”

“Medium.”

Brian swallowed the pills.

* * *

Sixteen ounces was a lot smaller than Brian remembered, he gripped the thin paper cup as tightly as he dared, keeping it close to inhale the rich aroma and savor the small sips he allowed himself—trying to stretch the pleasant sharpness of the caffeine buzz as long as possible. “Have they said anything?” He asked, eyes darting from one monitor to the next, taking in the live feed from each holding cell.

“Twitchy one asked for a pack of cards a couple hours ago,” Chato gestured idly toward the far-left screen that showed Mia, Letty, and Jesse deep into a game of blackjack. “He counts cards, the sister too.”

“Aggro over here is pretty fond of calling us pigs, he eats like one too,” Mac said, tapping the monitor that showed Vince stubbornly cranking out sit-ups on the cell floor.

“And Dom?” Brian asked, watching Dom stand sentinel in the far corner of his cell, the one that would give him the best view of the door. He held himself so still Brian worried vaguely that the tape was running on a loop.

“He asked for you,” Fusco said, eyeing Brian out of the corner of his eye, “he said you were the only one he’d talk to, and the rest of us could fuck right off.”

“We need to bring him out, put him in interrogation,” Brian said, draining the last of his coffee, feeling the urgency of the situation solidify again, a lead weight in the pit of his stomach.

“Since when have we ever let prisoners dictate our terms of engagement?” Fuso asked.

“You don’t understand,” Brian sighed, massaging the bridge of his nose.

“You’re right, I don’t,” Fusco snapped, spinning his chair around to face Brian head on, “I don’t really think _any_ of us do.” Mac reached out, giving Fusco’s shoulder a warning squeeze, only to be violently shrugged off. “He was your mark, right?” Fusco went on, a cruel twist to his smile, dark eyes glinting with poorly hidden disdain. “What’d he do to you, O’Conner? How’d he crack that moral compass of yours and make you go _native_?” 

They lunged for each other at the same time. Mac got a grip on a fistful of Fusco’s shirt, redirecting his momentum so that they staggered to the side, Brian felt Luke’s arm lock up like iron around his middle, hauling him back and out of reach.

“Enough!” Luke barked, the room quieting instantly. He relaxed his arm and Brian shoved out of his grip, pacing off to the corner, pressing his back into it and stuffing his hands in his pockets so the others couldn’t see them shake with residual adrenaline.

Luke’s gaze snapped from Brian to Fusco, his jaw working in slow, frustrated circles—chewing over their stupidity. “Try that again, and you’ll both end up riding desks back in DC. Am I clear?”

When no one answered, Luke slammed his fist against the wall, punching a hole straight through the drywall and showering Chato with paint chips. “I said, _am I clear_?”

Fusco gave a jerky nod, yanking away from Mac’s grip, the collar of his shirt ripped wide from the other man’s unyielding grasp. Brian felt the weight of Luke’s gaze on him and he lifted his eyes, the blue of them glacial. They stayed like that for a long moment, Luke trying to thaw him out, and Brian refusing to give an inch. While he’d never say it out loud, Fusco was right. They were in over their heads and none of them had even realized it yet. They didn’t understand, they _couldn’t_.

Luke was still watching him, waiting for an acquiescence that Brian couldn’t give him. “Dom being here changes everything,” he said instead, watching something harden in the depths of Luke’s eyes—disbelief maybe, or betrayal.

“Letty and Vince wouldn’t move on something that big without his approval, and if Braga wants a driver who doesn’t lose…” Brian shrugged helplessly, “Dom isn’t just at the top of the list, he is the list, full-stop.”

Fusco snorted and Mac made an aborted move to grab him, but Brian just kept plowing, pushing off from where he was resting his weight against the wall. “We don’t have the upper hand and we don’t have the time to pretend like we do. If I’m the only one he’ll talk to, then that’s that,” he glanced over at Chato, “take him up to interrogation one, yeah? I need a smoke.”

No one moved to stop him so Brian walked out, down the hall and out the door. It was fully dark now, or as dark as LA ever was, the constant haze of light pollution hanging over the city like a halo. He’d barely taken his first drag before Luke came out, the door bouncing violently off the brick as the spring-loaded stopper snapped with the force.

“Give me a reason,” he growled, backing Brian up flush against the wall, “give me one good reason why I shouldn’t take your badge and your gun, right here.”

Brian flicked the cherry bright embers off the end of his cigarette before finally lifting his eyes to meet Luke’s gaze. “Because you love this team,” he said matter-of-factly, “and you love _me_.” The word hung suspended in the air, fragile as the smoke rolling off Brian’s lips.

Luke’s jaw snapped shut with an audible click, his mask of fury cracked wide open, giving Brian a long hard look at the vulnerability that lay beneath. He’d only ever seen glimpses of it before, in the gentle hand on his side as they lay panting and sated after sex, in the way Luke’s eyes found him when they were teetering on the precipice of disaster, and the quiet, unerring acceptance Luke had when he was calling out someone else’s name for comfort.

He’d done nothing to earn that devotion, had no right to it, but that didn’t change the fact that it was there, staring him in the face. Brian dropped his cigarette, grinding it to ash beneath the heel of his boot. When he looked up again Luke was still watching him, lost in a way that Brian was intimately familiar with. He knew that feeling, to be so maddeningly adrift in someone who clearly loved you but at the same time did not _need_ you—not the way you needed them, like they were gravity, the only thing holding you back from the abyss.

Reaching out, Brian cradled the back of Luke’s neck, pulling him down and pressing their foreheads together. He held him there, letting their breathing slow and synchronize, his other hand pressed flat against the steady thrum of Luke’s heart. “We’ve got one shot at getting out of this, and love isn’t going to cut it,” Brian said softly, pressing a kiss to the corner of Luke’s mouth, warm lips chasing his own.

“I need you to trust me," he murmured, dragging his thumb back and forth in a slow caress behind Luke's ear. "Do you? Do you trust me?” 

Luke seized him by the back of his neck in response, slamming their mouths together. Brian sank into the kiss, his heart skipping one beat, and the then two as the mounting silence seemed to be careening toward denial. His vision started to swim at the lack of oxygen and just as his knees started to go, Luke tore away from him with a soft gasp, the rough rasp of his voice sending a shiver down Brian’s spine.

“With _everything_.”

* * *

Interrogation one had once been an office. Refurbished to fit the growing needs of the department, it was the only interrogation room in the entire field office that’s observation room only had one point of entry, forcing observers to walk through the interrogation room itself in order to come and go.

It was also the one closest to the parking garage. 

When the power went out, it went with a pop, the sound of automated locks engaging, trapping the team in total darkness. It took one minute and thirty-four seconds for the emergency generators to kick in and the lights to come back on, the room on the other side of the two-way mirror empty.

They found his badge and his SIG Sauer on the table in the room, along with Toretto’s empty cuffs and leg-irons, the door to the hall broken clean off its hinges.

The cameras had come online with just enough time to catch one last glimpse of the rental SUV peeling out of the lot—Brian at the wheel, Toretto beside him— disappearing into the night. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're in the home stretch, Team! 
> 
> As always, much appreciation for the comments and the kudos, they feed my little writer soul. For as small as this fandom is, it does not lack for support.


	6. Interlude - Dom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So,” Dom mused, unable to keep the old bitterness from creeping in, “this is the real Brian O’Conner? You’re a worse driver than I remember.”

They left rubber streaked across the asphalt, blowing through one red light after another. Brian didn’t talk, barely blinked, his eyes fixed on the width of their lane as the tires ate up one mile after another. He was going like he’d forgotten that they had brakes, threading through nameless side streets with no clear direction.

Dom didn’t know what the plan was, and every intersection Brian careened through without so much as a fucking cursory glance made it clearer that there may not be a plan at all. The needle hadn’t dipped below seventy since they hit open road and they nearly kissed the back end of a slow turning semi because Brian didn’t so much as ease his foot off the gas. But the reflective blur of a _No Outlet_ sign forced Dom to make up his mind.

“Turn right at the light.”

Brian’s eyes cut across to him and Dom had to make a conscious effort not to flinch away from the manic intensity in them. Whatever fugue he was trying to surface from wasn't easy to shake. Brian’s gaze fixed on him like he’d never fucking seen him before, like he had no clue how he'd ended up behind the wheel, like they weren’t just a mile and change from smashing head-on through a guardrail and into the churning maw of the pacific.

Dom watched the needle creep higher, edging toward seventy-five, the yellow hue of streetlights strobing in the dark of the cab as they sped toward the light. Dom half regretted saying anything at all now they were driving entirely fucking blind, he could feel his heart crawling up his throat, knuckles white where he’d taken hold of the armrests to resist the urge to just fucking grab the wheel.

They were going to miss the turn.

Metal meeting metal, the lurch of freefall, waves cold and dark to drown them both.

Dom reached back blindly into his memory, grasping at fleeting moments of skin sliding sweat slick over leather, the heady tang of gasoline sharp on his tongue as he dragged it up the long line of a sun kissed throat, his nose buried in the fine blonde hair just starting to curl at the nape. 

“ _Buster_.”

It came out steadier than he’d have hoped for, weighted with all the things they’d both left unsaid.

The wheel jerked and Dom slammed shoulder first into the window, too stunned to try and catch himself. His gut lurched at the momentary shift in gravity, right wheels barely skimming pavement as the weight of the SUV swayed ominously before settling back on solid ground with a bone jarring jolt and a moan of complaint from the suspension system. 

Dom forced his eyes open, stealing another glance at Brian, quietly relieved the blond was now watching the road instead of him. 

“A right on Dayton,” Dom breathed, when they were within a half mile of the next turn. He braced his arm against the door, half expecting a repeat of their last death-defying turn. Instead, Brian finally eased his foot off the gas, dropping just enough speed to make the turn without rolling. Dom guided him mile by mile, nearly melting into the seat when they crossed an unmarked finish line, slowing to a stop in the drive of a cookie-cutter bungalow with faded blue siding and white shutters.

The hammer of his heartbeat was near deafening in the sudden silence. After a beat of hesitation, Dom reached across the center console and took the keys from Brian’s hands, watching them reflexively curl around nothing and open again to emptiness. “Get out,” Dom murmured, adrenaline souring into something bitter in his mouth.

“ _Christ_ , O’Conner,” Dom scrubbed a hand over his face, “we need to ditch this car, understand?”

He shoved at Brian’s shoulder and when he finally opened his door, Dom slid out of his own. The street was dark and quiet, not a soul in sight, but there was no telling for how long. “Key’s on top of the eave, get inside and stay there until I get back,” Dom said, moving around to the driver’s side.

He idled in the drive until he watched Brian make it all the way inside, before throwing it in reverse and easing back down the drive. Two blocks over he dumped it in back lot of a twenty-four hour diner, tossing the keys in the dumpster before hustling the long way back around to the bungalow.

The front door was unlocked and if Dom wasn’t doused in sweat and teetering on exhaustion, he might have found the energy to be more pissed off about Brian’s blatant disregard of common sense. Sliding the deadbolts back in place, he headed for the kitchen, making a beeline for the fridge only to find the twelve pack that he’d left the last time he’d come through was gone. Turning to face the dark, sparsely furnished expanse of the living room, he half expected to find Brian sprawled across the floral-patterned loveseat with a bottle in hand, but he found the sliding door open instead.

Light rippled across him, the fractured reflection of the pool throwing Brian into sharp, blue tinted focus. He lifted his hand to his mouth, taking a long drag off the cigarette nestled between his middle and forefinger, the glow of dying embers setting his half-lidded eyes ablaze. He tipped his head back, eyes falling entirely shut as he exhaled, the night breeze catching the smoke and carrying the acrid smell to the porch where Dom was watching him. His other hand was wrapped loosely around the neck of a bottle of Corona, the missing twelve pack set dangerously close to the edge of the pool deck.

The Brian he’d known had been made of snow—soft, cool, malleable. This man, pale and bruised, was ice. Thinner, sharper, cracked— all those boyish angles shaved down to hard lines and lean muscle. He even stood differently, the casual slouch of a California surfer ironed straight, shoulders held high and back, making use of height that Dom had forgotten Brian even had.

Dom took a long look, eyes tracing from the tread of his boots, up the fitted inseam of black denim, and around the tactical straps wound high and tight around Brian’s right thigh, empty without the SIG. The shirt was more fitted than anything Dom had ever seen him in, a dark shadow of ink that hadn’t been there all those years ago peeking out from beneath the sleeve.

Stubble shaded his jaw, bruises smeared like war paint below eyes the color of a storm churned sea and across the jut of his cheek. The golden curls he remembered had been shorn short, barely long enough to tug. And yet, it was the cigarette that seemed like the most egregious trespass against his memories.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” Dom said, cocking an eyebrow. He’d never seen Brian with a pack, had never caught the smell of it off his hair or clothes, or if he had maybe he’d chalked it up to Jesse. Yet the repetitive motion of his hand coming nearer, lips curling indelicately around the end for a drag, was so fluid it could only have been borne of a well-practiced habit.

There was a long beat of silence before Brian turned to look at him, washing the taste of ash out of his mouth with a long swallow of beer, “old habit.” He bared his teeth in a facsimile of a smile, flicking away the smoldering butt into the grass.

“So,” Dom mused, unable to keep the old bitterness from creeping in, “this is the real Brian O’Conner? You’re a worse driver than I remember.”

“This, coming from the guy that couldn’t make it over the border with a few hours head start,” Brian said, the look in his eyes so distinctly unimpressed that Dom felt guilt prickle across his skin. “Should’ve been a one-way trip, you would’ve been free and clear – or were you lying to me when you said you’d rather die than go back?”

“ _I_ wasn’t the one lying,” Dom said coolly, watching the words land like blows, hurt blooming quick in Brian’s eyes but shriveling just a fast.

“You shouldn’t have come back here,” Brian sighed, his shoulders sagging under a weight Dom couldn’t see, “Fenix is bad news, you don’t know who you’re getting into bed with—”

“Seems to be a habit of mine,” Dom shot back, the boom of his voice loud in the quiet of the yard as he crossed his arms over his chest, daring Brian to meet his eyes, “I don’t know you either.”

Brian flinched, bodily this time, stepping back from Dom like the distance would save him.

“You’re not even a cop anymore, O’Conner. Your team doesn’t have standard issue pieces, no decals on your vests, and it’s been a minute, but that box isn’t exactly what I remember LA lock-up looking like—so you’re what? Feds, paramilitary?”

“Both,” Brian gritted out, lowering his gaze back to the rippling surface of the pool. “The DSS is a federal entity but our jurisdiction is global.”

Dom’s scowl deepened, “And somehow here you are, turning up like a bad penny.”

“I’m not here for you,” Brian snapped, hurling the bottle in his direction. Dom felt the soft rush of air as it rushed by just a couple inches from his face, bouncing harmlessly into a dark corner of the yard.

“We were attached to the embassy in Brazil when Braga’s folder hit our desk,” he went on, pacing along the edge of the deck. “This guy isn’t some two-bit drug runner, Dom. He moves guns, women, children, anything that’ll sell, and he doesn’t care who gets in his way. He’s put down DEA agents, spooks, federales, one of my own fucking guys!”

Brian snapped his mouth shut with an audible click of his teeth, realizing, albeit a bit too late, that he was nearly shouting. “When we caught Fenix on CC-TV in Baja, I knew he was headed here, and I just—I had to be sure…” Brian trailed off, shaking his head.

“You had to be sure it wasn’t us, that it wasn’t _me_ ,” Dom finished, that vice that had gripped his heart since Brian had hustled him out of that interrogation room, squeezed. “We don’t run that way, Bri. We never have.

Brian turned, closing the space between them three long strides. “Do you think that matters?” he asked, voice raw. “Did you honestly think they would just let you spin your tires and walk away?”

“I couldn’t let you go back, I couldn’t let it break you,” Brian said, the hoarseness of his voice, tilting Dom off balance. “I gave up everything for you—” he broke off with guttural noise of frustration, both hands coming up and shoving at Dom’s chest with enough force to make him roll back on his heels, “—and you still ended up here, tangled in this mess, another loose end for Braga to tie up.”

Dom watched Brian’s eyes flutter shut again, knuckles white where he knotted them in the fabric of his shirt. He tipped his head forward, bowed against the light. When his eyes slid open they were wet, teeth gritted against some unspoken hurt.

“You were supposed to be a fluke,” Brian murmured, stepping closer, making himself broader, filling Dom’s field of vision, “a side effect of the adrenalin, a fuckin’ fever dream.”

Dom reached out, took his chin, guiding Brian into the kiss. It was like stepping into a memory, into that last night before Race Wars. A cool breeze, the taste of corona on warm lips and a slick tongue. Dom wondered for a brief moment if this could have been his world, if he’d taken the keys and Brian’s hand with them, if it wasn’t too late to grab hold of it now. “Ride or die?” Dom whispered against his mouth, pliant and searching.

It took a long moment for Brian to pull back, when he did his face was shuttered, the pain and the frustration wiped blank.

Dom felt his stomach bottom out, “Buster?”

One of the hands that Brian had knotted in his shirt went slack, he lifted it, dragging the back of it across his mouth. “No,” Brian whispered, shaking his head.

Dom had a brief flash of Hobbs, the broad swath of his shadow twined tight with Brian’s. His calloused hand gripping Brian’s, face bent close, lips brushing Brian’s ear as he’d talked him down from whatever ledge seeing him in that yard had put Brian on. The way Brian had unlocked piece by piece, lowering his gun.

Rage bled through him hot and quick, his throat going tight. “Are you–do you _love_ him?” Dom asked, nearly choking on the words.

Brian’s eyes snapped to his, his hand tightening where he still held a fistful of Dom’s shirt, half pushing, half pulling. “ _Fuck you_.”

The venom in those two words hurt a hell of a lot more than the crack of Brian’s fist colliding with his jaw. Dom jerked with hit, stumbling as stars burst behind his eyes. By the time he’d straightened up the sliding glass door had long slammed shut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always your comments and kudos are greatly appreciated. I hope the wait was worth it, we're getting down to the nitty gritty. Do you know who Brian's going to end up with? Do I know who Brian's going to end up? Both great questions.


	7. Interlude - Brian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He heard the sliding door open and shut, the mere weight of Dom’s presence making him feel off kilter, like the floor had tilted and every moment the grade grew steeper. Dark eyes, warm skin, the smell of hot metal and gasoline...

His head hurt, his face hurt, his mouth tasted like ash. Brian braced one hand against the linoleum countertop, the other cupped beneath the running tap, bringing handfuls of lukewarm water to his lips to try and rinse away the lingering heat of Dom’s lips. The kitchen fluorescents hummed like a wasp’s nest and he regretted, not for the first time, that he hadn’t taken any of the good painkillers before ditching his team.

He heard the sliding door open and shut, the mere weight of Dom’s presence making him feel off kilter, like the floor had tilted and every moment the grade grew steeper. Dark eyes, warm skin, the smell of hot metal and gasoline—it was the ghost of everything he’d thought he’d wanted, everything he’d missed. Somehow, here, in the dark, small hours of the morning, it wasn’t enough.

“There’s a bed—”

“I’ll take the couch,” Brian said automatically, wincing at the sharpness of his own voice. He took a deep breath and forced it through his teeth. “What even is this place, how long before it comes up hot?”

“It was Leon’s mom’s place before she moved to Florida with her dentist,” the rumble of Dom’s voice was steady, detached. “It’s still in her name, we’ve rented it out on and off for years, and occasionally we use the garage for storage.”

“A bolt hole,” Brian said, smiling wryly to himself. “You’ve been ready to run for years.”

“I wasn’t lying when I said I wouldn’t go back,” Dom said, and Brian’s answering laugh was mirthless and ragged, dredged from somewhere dry and sore at the bottom of his smoke weary lungs. His lifted his gaze. Dom stood a few feet off fromm the bar top, backlit in the gauzy blue of the pool light. His arms were crossed over his chest, shadows cutting dark lines where his brow was furrowed, lips pressed thin. There were no sun-soaked memories here, no rucked-up t-shirts, no slick mouths trailing heat along the long lines of thighs or throats.

“No,” Brian agreed, “I don’t suppose you were. Safer to stay south of the border, but anything for a thrill, right?”

Dom’s face twisted, something ugly and hurt surfacing. “My _family’s_ here, Bri.”

The way he said it, with weight, like that one word could carry the answer to any and every question in the world—Brian felt his stomach clench, a deep seeded and smoldering want flaring to life with brilliant, burning agony. “Is there anything you wouldn’t do to keep them safe?”

“No.”

Brian nodded slowly, uncurling his hand from the fist it’d been clenched into, palm bloody where his nails cut little half-moon divots. “Ride with me to take down Braga,” he said, surprised at the steadiness of his own voice. “The crew stays safe and you get a clean record.”

He heard the breath Dom sucked in, sharp and surprised. “Clean?” Dom repeated, rolling the word around his mouth in clear disbelief.

“Clean,” Brian said, clear and firm. “Linder, the truck jackings, evading the police—poof, like it never happened. I’ll scrub the team’s records too, everyone gets a redo.”

Dom staggered back a step, sitting down so suddenly on the coffee table that Brian was afraid it would snap clean in two under his weight. Genuinely clean records—not sealed or expunged—it would be a brand-new start. He’d be able to race, go legit on the track, do everything that a few moments of blind, grief fueled rage with a wrench in hand had stripped away all those years ago. 

“Why?” Dom croaked, flayed open and raw with that painfully familiar knife edge the world called hope.

Brian blinked, slow and confused. “Why, what?”

“Why would you—” He shook his head, dragging a hand over his face and back over his skull, a shadow of growth starting to creep along the usually smooth skin. “Why did you come back, Bri? If it wasn’t for me, then _why_?”

“They were my family too,” Brian said quietly, “that part wasn’t a lie, no matter what you thought. I loved you, Dom. I still do.”

Dom’s head snapped up at that, their eyes met and for the first moment, Brian felt balanced. This was his truth. He’d loved Dom, he’d loved the crew, and a part of him always would.

“I love you, too.”

The orchestra didn’t swell, fireworks didn’t burst to life and bathe them in color. The Earth continued to turn, the little neon light on the stove changed from 2:39 to 2:40.

“Loving someone doesn’t mean you should stick around and fuck with their life,” Brian said, voice worn tired and thin. “That’s all we’ve ever done, Dom. We fuck each other and then we fuck each other over, I can’t do it again. We make it through this? You get your team, I get mine, we all go home happy.”

Quiet settled in around them, a silent war of wills as Dom held his gaze, looking for something that Brian couldn’t name.

“Does he make—” the jealousy in Dom’s words was tempered, not acidic, just sour, but it still made rage rise hot in the cracks between Brian’s ribs.

“You don’t get to talk about _him_ ,” he snapped, razor sharp and brittle. Brian had never labeled his feelings for Luke, not the way he had with Dom. His memories of the past five years were not colored in shades of gold gilded loyalty earned with a murmured _smoke ‘em_ on the PCH, or a bone deep sense of admiration as glossy as the oil slick black of the Charger cutting across the line at that first race. They were labeled with crude words like practical, and convenient, sepia and cheap, because that’s all Brian had allowed himself. Afraid of the loss and the hurt that looked a hell of a lot like blood-stained concrete and the blur of a neon orange paint job cresting a hill and disappearing without him.

“You left me,” Brian said levelly. “All these years and I never heard _anything,_ you don’t get to regret it now just because I’m in reach.”

Dom smiled, small and tight, finally holding his hands up in surrender. Torettos were a stubborn lot, but it couldn’t be said that they didn’t know how to pick their battles. “Fair, Buster, fair. Just don’t forget that you were the one heading for the hills this time.” 

Brian swallowed thickly and looked away. “You gonna ride with me or not?”

Dom sighed soft and breathy, his chin dipping in a small nod. “Yeah, yeah I will. What’s the plan, you even got one?”

Brian’s shoulders sagged in relief. “Yeah, yeah I got a plan,” he ran a hand through his hair, meeting Dom’s gaze again. “We need a car, and we need to win,” he shot a glance toward the front of the house, half regretting that he’d let Dom ditch the SUV, not that it’d make near 10 seconds in this world or any other. “Car’s the hard part, everything you and the crew have touched in the last year will be hot.”

Dom smiled, a real smile, easy and warm. “I think I’ve got that covered.” He levered himself off the coffee table, the wood groaning ominously. He cut through the kitchen, the heat of him lingering against Brian like a desert breeze as he moved toward the garage.

Brian followed, mentally kicking himself for thinking that Dom would have a safe house and not have a back-up car to go with it. While the rest of the place had been covered in a thin layer of that powder fine dust common to the coast, the garage looked spotless at first glance. Hot and thick with summer humidity, but the work bench and the tarp thrown over whatever car Dom had stashed were both clean.

Dom made quick work of releasing the snap closures, yanking back the taupe covering. “Think she’ll do?”

For a brief second Brian thought he might have been having a stroke. The familiar curve of the body was something out of a dream, impossibly familiar but not quite as he’d remembered. Her lines seemed smoother, but it was likely just an illusion of the paint, a glossy shade of navy so deep it could have passed for black on a dark strip.

“You didn’t scrap it,” Brian said, crouching down and examining the tires on it, the new rims done in matte, gun metal gray. Despite the makeover, he knew the Supra when he saw it, could still name every part they’d put under the hood and in what order.

“Can you win with a rice rocket?” He asked, tearing his eyes away and looking up at Dom. “Braga’s race is tomorrow night, we can’t risk a test drive getting us spotted. You’ll have to win on a cold run, get me in close.”

Dom nodded, not at all fazed. With a moment of clarity, Brian realized racing had never done anything but put Dom at ease. He’d never had to sit behind the wheel trying to manifest the win, it was muscle memory, a simple matter of reaching out and taking it.

“The win is easy, what comes after?” Dom asked, holding his gaze in the side mirror.

“We take Braga,” Brian said, steady. “Use him as bait for his fuckin’ dog. Drag them both out across the border, into the desert.”

Dom’s eyes narrowed, “And then what?”

Brian smiled, the phantom taste of iron blooming in his mouth. “I put 'em down.”

Dom blinked and Brian didn’t think he imagined the slight shudder that rocked through him. “And why aren’t we letting your team in on the action? Seems like this sort of thing would be in their wheelhouse.”

Brian took a steadying breath, nearly knocked sideways by the sudden onslaught of memory—blood tacky and cooling between in his fingers, the acrid stench of burning rubber and cordite filling his nose, turning his stomach. “You and me? We deserve what we get, no matter how this shakes out,” he said, that burning Venezuelan hamlet as close in the side mirror as Dom’s looming silhouette. “But they don’t get another shot at my team, or yours, I’m not burying any more friends.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, hello, you've made it through the last of the introspective interludes! 
> 
> Thank you all so much for the kind comments and feedback, it really keeps me going. I know I have a tendency of digging my own rabbit hole, hopefully this chapter clears up some of the confusion? Let me know what you think :)


	8. Where the road ends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I’d have paced him 'til the engines blew or the tanks ran dry.

Music pulsed from shadowed corners, the lights overhead throwing dim shades of amber and red over the club. Dom set his empty bottle on the counter, motioning the bartender for another Corona, and wishing faintly that he could knock back something a little stronger.

“You don’t disappoint señor Toretto,” the drawl of Braga’s voice was only just audible, but undoubtedly impressed. The race, if you could call it that, had been as good as done the moment the Supra leapt off the starting line. He’d been racing the drags from Ensenada to Santa Barbra, and everywhere in between, since he was old enough to reach the pedals. The others had had a distant view of his taillights from one line to the next and that sort of showing seemed to have left an impression on the big man himself since he’d insisted on taking him out and buying Dom’s drinks personally.

Dom’s eyes strayed toward Brian, bent over the pool table, the red hue of the lights painting the sun burn he’d gotten scoping the race from the dunes in stark bloody streaks down his neck and out toward the jut of his shoulder. The buttons of his shirt were half undone, and there, hanging casually around his neck like a platinum albatross was his cross. His throat tightened and for a moment Dom forgot how to breathe, absorbed in watching the light reflect off the diamonds, sending shards of crimson light dancing over Brian’s chest.

“Toretto?”

Dom blinked, snapping back into the present, gaze cutting sharply toward Braga who was glancing between him and Brian with clear amusement. “Not what I thought you’d like, but not a bad choice either,” Braga said, gesturing vaguely at a distantly looming bodyguard. The brute cut gracelessly through the crowd, shouldering his way by, and catching Brian with a thick hand on his shoulder.

The blonde tensed, lips moving tightly in a sharp retort that got lost in the bass pulsing through the walls. Dumb enough to mistake his size for an advantage, the bodyguard shifted his grip to Brian’s bicep, Dom’s eyes narrowed at the obvious pressure he was applying—like he thought he could actually pry Brian from where he’d chosen to plant his feet.

Rookie mistake.

Quick as a whip crack, Brian took up the lowball glass at his other elbow and smashed it clean into pieces against the man’s temple, shrugging off his slack grip as he crumpled. Blood and whiskey soured the air, everyone frozen where they stood, everyone but Brian.

He lifted a foot, planting it on the fool’s head and grinding his face into the needle-sharp glass shards glittering across the floor, drawing a low moan of pain from what Dom would have assumed was an actual corpse on its way toward cooling – the Buster had shown some restraint then, he had no doubt that if Brian had intended to kill the man, he’d be well and truly dead. Braga inhaled sharply, moving to rise.

Dom chuckled and held up a hand, waving him off.

Brian looked up at the sound, drawn to it even now. He stalked through the still stunned crowd, invading Dom’s space and taking the bottle of Corona straight from his hand and taking a long and careless draw, that left the phantom taste of him on Dom’s lips. “Next time send a finger of whiskey and maybe I’ll come over without making a mess,” Brian murmured, cutting an unapologetic glance toward Braga.

To his credit, Brian’s face gave nothing away, a mask of pure disinterest. Dom could tell it still unnerved Braga from the way the man shifted, sitting up a little straighter, wrong footed now that he was without his escort.

“Since when do you drink whiskey?” Dom asked, reaching out and sliding a hand over and around Brian’s hip, coaxing him down onto his lap. Brian went easily enough, settling his weight—lighter than Dom remembered, but somehow more solid—on Dom’s thigh and leaning in to rest against his chest.

This close, Dom could smell the offending drink on Brian’ breath, felt the heat of his body bleeding through thin linen. Braga, unable to hide his surprise, stared openly. “You two know each other?” He asked, a bit of the tension seeping out his shoulders, lulled by the idea of it, of Brian coming to heel at Dom’s hand. He hadn’t the faintest idea that Brian held all the reins here, that Dom had been as surprised as him at Brian’s willingness to settle, that he hadn’t bristled like an angry cat at the casual touch of his hand curled over his thigh.

Dark eyes dipping low, Dom dragged a finger along the familiar platinum chain, winding the slack of it around his free hand and feeling the heat of Brian’s body seep from the metal links into his own skin. “We loved each other…he left me behind,” Brian corrected, entirely unbothered by the slight jerk of the chain, even as it pulled tight over the pink flush of his sunburn. Dom’s eyes snapped up, an apology, a _plea_ poised on his lips—Braga be damned, he couldn’t live with this, with everything he could’ve had sitting in his lap, wound around his fingers, but still out of reach.

Braga whistled low and impressed, “I see.” He leaned forward, collecting his drink, back at ease now that he thought he’d figured out their dynamic. “You’re a lucky man,” he said, looking at Dom pointedly.

“How’s that?” Dom asked, feeling anything but.

Braga’s brows climbed higher and he jerked his chin toward the pool table, where his bodyguard still lay prone and bleeding, “You’re still breathing.”

Brian barred his teeth in a facsimile of a smile and Dom wondered for a split moment if he even knew what the real thing still felt like, that easy, lopsided flash of teeth over an open engine. “He’s lucky there was only one car around when he did, otherwise I’d have paced him 'til the engines blew or the tanks ran dry,” Brian said, reaching up and covering Dom’s hand with his own, a warning to get his head on straight—though Dom didn’t know how he was supposed to be any kind of coherent when Brian was saying shit like that.

Braga chuckled, “Man or woman, as a long as they can drive. Is that how it is for you, Toretto?”

“You’ve got no idea,” Dom said, finally tearing his gaze away to look at Braga again, letting the chain fall from his hand, a thin red welt layered over sun pink hollow of Brian’s throat where he’d pulled it taut.

“I’ve got a proposition then, see there’s an errand I need to run tonight and that’s my driver under the pool table,” Braga said, raking his eyes over Brian with renewed interest. “Care to give a brief demonstration, señor? If you’re as good as Toretto says—”

“I’m better.” Dom’s grip on Brian’s thigh tightened reflexively, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise, trying to get a handle on the situation that had spiraled madly away from their original plan for a smash and grab in the parking lot.

Braga chuckled again, fishing out a set of keys and tossing them to Brian. “Let’s see then, shall we?”

He snatched them deftly from the air, breaking Dom’s hold without missing a beat and getting to his feet. Motioning Braga on, they trailed him to the parking lot, Dom pulling Brian to a stop just outside the door.

“What’re you doing?” Dom hissed, pressing in close, using the broadness of his body to block as much of Brian from Braga’s sight as he could. “This wasn’t the plan. If we’re wrong, if he has any idea who you are—”

Brian’s eyes flicked up to meet his gaze, the corner of his mouth twitching like he was fighting a smile. “If he had any idea who I was, I’d have been dead before I got through the door, besides—” Brian twirled Braga’s key around his fingers, “I trust you to keep up.”

* * *

The church, when they came to it, a cloud of dust and gravel left in their wake, was only half done. His head lights bounced off the metal scaffolding, plastic tarps flapping in the cool pre-dawn air. “Aye dios mio,” Braga gasped, one hand braced on the door, the other on the dash. He glanced at the rearview, impressed to find it still empty. They’d shaken the low-slung shadow of the Supra while playing a game of chicken against an oil tanker on a gravel backroad some fifteen miles ago and they hadn’t seen headlights since.

“You’re good,” Braga said, slowly loosening his holds and shooting a sly smile at Brian, “crazy, but good.”

“I learned from the best,” Brian agreed, tracking the distant shift of shadows near the door, guards—but none of them Fenix.

“Are you a man of god, Brian?” Braga asked, looking up at the half-reconstructed spires through the windshield. Brian shrugged, seeing no reason to lie.

“Ah, well, it’s a good thing we’re not here for the service then,” Braga levered himself out of the passenger seat, moving to collect a black duffle from the trunk. Brian shadowed him past the guards at the heavy double doors and into what had obviously once been a beautiful cathedral. The sound of their feet on the cobble stones echoed airily, pews standing scuffed and empty. Rows on rows of votive candles lit the space with soft golden light, a haggard looking priest stood at the altar, eyeing their approach with obvious apprehension.

He greeted Braga with softly murmured pleasantries, and Brian tracked the familiar motions of the men as they crossed themselves. Braga asked for a prayer, kneeling at the steps of the altar, when the priest acquiesced, albeit with an open look of consternation and hurried absolutions. With a murmured amen, the priest collected the duffle and excused himself, even as Braga remained knelt, praying the rosary, and thumbing a set of beads he’d produced from his pocket.

It was all for show of course, an empty facsimile of faith, albeit a convenient one. Brian looked over at the sound of approaching steps, Braga too consumed in his own mutterings to pay much attention. There was a pinched look on Dom’s face as he took in the scene, had there been the time for it, Brian was sure he’d have had a few choice words for Braga’s choice in bolt holes.

Time, however, was one of the many things they didn’t have on their side. Brian held out his hand and Dom reluctantly tossed him the pump action shotgun, one of Vince’s old pieces they’d found back in the bungalow. “You’re not forgiven,” Brian said, pressing the barrel flush to the side of Braga’s head. The other man flinched at the cold bite of steel against his temple, dark eyes flying open, looking from Dom to Brian and back again.

“Que estos?” Braga asked the shock fading quickly, a slow smile cracking across his face as he put the pieces together, fixing his eyes on Brian with a new sense of understanding. “You’re the cop, aren’t you? The one who let Toretto get away. Isn’t this a bit out of your jurisdiction?”

“The DSS has a long reach,” Brian answered coolly.

“I see, you run with Luke Hobbs and his band of broken _soldados_.” Braga’s smile twisted into a sneer, his eyes lifting to meet Brian’s, filled with a cruel sort of interest. “I’ve got my own, right outside that door, you really think you can arrest me here?”

At the mention of Luke, Brian chambered a round and released the safety. Braga flinched, but he wasn’t the only one, Dom twitched in his peripheral – an aborted half-step forward. It wasn’t the plan to blow Braga’s head clear off his shoulders, to splatter the purple, blue, orange, and green puddles of light cast through the stained-glass windows by the morning sun with wet, red blood. But nothing else had gone to plan, and Brian wasn’t sure this is where it should start. It’d only take one shot, to kill him, to bring the wrath of the cartel down on their heads.

“Hermano,” Braga said, jolting Brian out of his thoughts, “you and me, we’re not so different. You’re no hero.”

“No, I’m not,” Brain agreed, smiling bitterly, “but Fernando Wilkes was.”

Tossing the shotgun back to Dom, he crouched, yanking Braga’s arms behind his back and securing his wrists with zip-cuffs he’d stashed down his boot. “I want you to understand,” he hissed, circling around so that he was nearly nose to nose with the other man, matching him one cold stare for another. “I’m not here to arrest you, we’re past that. You’re going to pay for his life with yours, but I want your dog too, and he only comes when you call.” 

Dragging Braga up to his feet by the front of his shirt, Brian herded him out of the side door that Dom had slipped in, shoving him into the back seat of the waiting Supra, only just resisting the urge to slam the door shut after him.

“You’ll never make it out of town,” Braga said, sprawled in the back seat while Brian slid into the driver’s, and Dom the passengers.

“Won’t know unless I try,” Brian said, shifting into gear and peeling off onto the dirt backroads laced between the barrio. It wasn’t that he hadn’t thought about the possibility that Braga’s men would catch on, but it had felt like a distant problem in comparison to actually bagging Braga.

“We’ve got a tail,” Dom said gruffly, dark eyes catching Brian’s in the rearview.

“I’m aware,” Brian gritted out, drifting around a corner and clipping a fruit stand, sending produce tumbling in their wake. There were two older model Hondas with aftermarket matte paint trailing him, a battered truck with some kind of belt fed automatic mounted on the railing coming up quick behind them. 

“You lost?” Braga asked, leaning forward over the center console. “Want me to plug in my GPS?”

“Bri—”

“Just shut up and let me drive!” Brian barked, eyes glued forward, even as the rapid rata-tat-tat of bullets blew out the back window. Swearing softly, Brian hit the NOS and opened up the throttle, jumping the road and heading out for open dessert.

“You’re crazy,” Braga breathed, crouched as far in the floor panels as he could manage with his hands bound. “You really think you’ll be able to find the tunnels out here? You’ll kill us all!”

“What tunnel?” Dom asked, head whipping around, the heat of his gaze making Brian’s neck prickle—or maybe that was the adrenaline.

“Dom, less talking, more shooting,” Brian ground out, whipping the wheel to the side, and shoving one of the Hondas that had been gaining ground on them off into a dried-out gully. Dom didn’t make him ask twice, taking up the shotgun and shattering the other’s windshield with a well-aimed shot. While the truck had stopped firing, there was a new problem coming into focus, quick approaching silhouettes of old American muscle cresting the dunes and gaining fast.

Leading the pack, crusted in sand and grit, was a forest green Gran Torino.

“I’ve got you now,” Brian murmured, shifting gears and pressing the pedal clear to the floor.

“You sure you know where the tunnels are?” Braga called, an empty taunt, eyes wide and darting along the horizon that was quickly being consumed by a rising range of rocky, mountainous outcroppings. “You sure?”

“Brian?” Dom asked again, out of ammo, and quickly running out of confidence as the mountains grew larger and larger.

The corner of Brian’s lips twitched into the barest hint of a smirk, but his eyes remained fixed square out the windshield, empty. “I’d hold on,” he advised coolly, “this might hurt.” He downshifted, never once easing his foot off the gas, as they crashed into darkness.

* * *

Impact was sound more than anything else—splintering wood, debris grinding through wheel wells, and the ear-splitting whine of rending metal and exploding tanks that lit the world behind them in bursts of fire. Boarded up and camouflaged, the tunnel entrance was exactly wide enough for a single car. Even the slightest miscalculation would result in meeting a solid rockface at 90+ miles per hour, dead on impact and blown to hell not a full second later.

Brian could feel the heat of it on the back of his neck, but he didn’t dare chance a look in the mirrors, following the cut of his high beams through the tunnels’ gloom and sparing little of his attention to anything else. He registered dimly that Braga was screaming in the back, and Dom had caught a stray splinter of wood or rock across his face, blood dripping from his cheek as he stared grim faced into the dark, white knuckling the console. “One made it through,” Dom said, the gravel of his voice breathy, like the words were fighting for real-estate in his lungs.

Sure enough light danced back at Brian from the sideview mirrors and he felt his pulse ratchet up to a roar. Fenix had made it through, unsurprising since what intel they had pointed toward him being point man for training Braga’s runners. He’d mapped these tunnels with information stolen off dead DEA agents and spooks. The team had outlined a rough possible blueprint of them, one that Brian had been running mentally for days, but so long as they were in the dark they were playing on Fenix’s turf—their only saving grace was that they had the dog’s master in the back seat.

“Bri,” Dom cut a glance at him, “Brian what happens when we get out of this tunnel?”

There was a long beat of silence before Brian risked a glance at Dom, his face set, ironed blank when he said, “Put on your harness.”

Dom swallowed, Brian watched the muscle of his throat work, and for a split moment he regretted dragging Dom into this, that there had been no way to go it alone. Even in the dark, Brian could see the hurt on Dom’s face, the betrayal. There was supposed to be a clean start for him after this, a clean start for his family, but the ugly truth was that there may not be an after.

Brian wetted his lips, swallowing down an apology as he saw a sliver of light in the distance. “Dom, _please_.”

Easing off the gas, as much as he dared to with Fenix behind them, Brian stalled for as long as he could until he heard the click of Dom’s harness lock into place.

“Would you have come with me?” Dom asked quietly, eyes forward, hands knotted together in his lap in silent prayer. “If I’d asked back then, would you have come with me?”

Brian flexed his grip on the steering wheel, shifting gears and bringing the Supra back up to speed. He felt more than saw Dom turn to look at him. Sucking in a slow breath, steadying himself before he turned to meet his gaze, dark eyes burning gold in the glow of fast approaching light.

“Yes,” Brian breathed and in those last moments of shadow, Dom watched him and Brian—Brian closed his eyes and he wished that that could have been enough, that they could have been enough.

The Supra split through the boards with a jolt. Brian opened his eyes to the blinding, sun-soaked expanse of desert spilled out before him, he yanked the emergency brake up and jerked the wheel to steer the car into the spin. Something hot and heavy swung out over his chest, pinning him flush to his seat, the edge of the cross biting into his skin.

Green flashed at the edge of his vision, metal careening into metal, his head cracked against the window and his stomach bottomed out as gravity lost hold, the world tilting away into black in a rush of shattering glass and the hot grit of sand in his blood wet mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the wait, I hope the added length makes up for it a bit.
> 
> We've got one (maybe two) more chapter(s) to go! I hope you've enjoyed the ride so far, you've made it enjoyable for me :) 
> 
> As always, comments, kudos, rotten tomatoes - it's all loved and appreciated here!


	9. With everything

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’d never heard a sound so final as the echoing crack of the shot—not the roaring rush of the flames that ate his father’s car from the inside out, or the hollow crunch of a socket wrench cracking Kenny Linder’s skull open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Blood and violence, nothing outside the realm of canon typical, but be safe ya'll.

_Orange haze danced across his vision, the glare of an unforgiving sun beating down from on high, and he was cold. His fingers scrambled in the dust, tremors running the length of his limbs as nerves shorted and sparked, confused at the absence of anything except a bone deep chill._

_“Hey, hey,” Luke leaned into his field of vision, his hands rough and wet, but blessedly warm where he cradled his face._

_“How b-bad?” Brian asked, mustering a smile that shook at the edges, teeth chattering._

_“You’ve had worse,” Luke lied, the truth of it written all over his face, from the deep-set crease between his brows to the terse pull of his lips. He dragged his thumb across Brian’s lip absently, the sharp tang of copper left behind. Fighting to focus, Brian stole a glance down at Luke’s hands, dripping blood._

_“Oh—” Brian breathed, his lungs seizing at the lack of air while he tried to laugh. Now that he knew to feel for it, he realized he wasn’t just cold, he was cold and wet. Blurs of motion shifted behind Luke, radio static and the harsh bark of Mac’s voice, tendrils of orange smoke wafting in lazily on a sand laden breeze – signal flare, a cas evac, damn—Brian couldn’t even remember what hit him. “That b-bad, huh?”_

_“Look at me, hey, B,” Luke leaned in closer, till he was all that Brian could see, “you’re gonna be fine.”_

_“Luke,” Brian smiled, his chest heavy, something spilling up his throat and dragging a cough out of his lungs. His mouth flooded with a rush of warmth, red running over the corners of his mouth, wetting Luke’s blood tacky hands anew._

_“Don’t let ‘em b-bury me next to my dad,” Brian murmured, fighting to look Luke in the eye even as his vision began to gray at the edges, “promise me.”_

_“I ain’t gotta worry about burying you, cause you’re not gonna die, not for something as dumb as Fuse’s shitty driving,” Luke said firmly, pressing their foreheads together as the distant slice of chopper blades started to grow louder._

_“Luke—”_

_“No, no you’re not getting out that easy, B.” Luke said, his tears falling hot against Brian’s cheeks. “You’re okay, you’re okay…Brian,” he was shaking him, pain radiating from his side but it was a dull ache, fading with the cold. “Bri—”_

* * *

“—an, come on Brian, wake up!”

Consciousness slammed into him like the broad side of a satin green Gran Torino and for a dizzying moment Brian had to fight to remember what desert he was staring at, that’s when he heard Dom’s voice calling for him again. “Dom?” Brian blinked, temple throbbing, blood running in rivulets down the side of his face from where he’d cracked it against the window. He wasn’t in his seat anymore, crumpled in an uncomfortable heap against the roof of the up-ended Supra.

“Bri,” Dom exhaled in relief and Brian turned toward the sound of it, Dom’s broad form swimming into focus beside him. “Damn catch is jammed,” Dom growled, one hand planted on the roof, face pink with the exertion of supporting his own weight as he hung upside down, partially suspended by the harness, his other hand working in vain at the bent metal of the buckle.

“You hurt?” Brian asked, trying and failing to shake the cotton edged blur from his thoughts, the barest bit of relief easing through him when Dom grunted in the negative. He twitched his toes in his boots and then rolled his ankle, comforted by the familiar drag of his knife sheath as it caught against his sock. Then he tested his fingers, his wrists—taking stock of everything that was still functional. After confirming nothing major was broken, or he was doped with too much adrenaline to feel that it was broken, he curled in on himself and managed to scramble up to all-fours.

Long shadows shaded the interior of the overturned car, Brian swore softly as he groped around the back seat and found it empty. “Keep an eye out, I’ll be back.” Ignoring Dom’s protests, he rolled onto his back and used the leverage to kick out his door. Crawling out into the dirt, he was met with the acrid smell of spilt oil and smoke.

Squinting against the sudden onslaught of sun, Brian spun an unsteady circle, until he spotted a column of black rising into the blue a couple yards off. Trekking up to the crest of the dune, he peered down and found the Torino broken and battered but right-side up, down the opposite side. The driver’s side door hung open, swaying on its hinges in the stiff, hot desert breeze. Brian slid a few steps down through the sand, gritting his teeth against the outrage that rose thick and sour as bile at the sight of the empty seat.

“Brian!”

Dom’s graveled shout reached him just as a shadow fell across his back, an arm winding thick and tight around his throat. Brian reached up instinctively, digging his nails in and tearing at flesh, allowing for a single breath of panic before it bled out of him and left ice behind. Kicking back, he hooked his foot behind Fenix’s ankle and swung all his weight forward, using the other man’s own bulk to build momentum and send them tumbling down the dune.

Sand grated hot across his arms, between his teeth, down his boots. Tearing free of Fenix’s grip, Brian rolled once more, sliding his knife from its sheath as he got his feet under himself and came out swinging. His first strike caught the meat of Fenix’s thigh, slicing through denim like butter, the back swing drove straight through his bicep and tearing the tattoo on it to shreds on the serrated edge.

Fenix snarled, lashing out with more force than finesse, catching Brian across the face and sending him spinning back a couple steps—opening up a few feet of space between them. Brian tasted blood, rolling it through his mouth and spitting a glob of gore and grit into the sand, matching Fenix’s sneer with blood stained teeth.

“I remember you, you know?” Fenix said, squaring his shoulders, dark eyes tracking Brian as he flipped the knife idly, finding a better grip. “You made quite the name for yourself down south, _Diablo Blanco_ , but you’re never fast enough where it counts. I’ll leave you out for the buzzards, let your soldado find what’s left. And when he comes for me, like you did, I’ll make sure he goes slow—just like your friend in Venezuela.”

Brian flipped the knife over his palm again, adjusting his hold until his fingers melted into the grooves worn into the grip. He spared a thought to that charred roadside in a desert just like this one, Luke’s last words to him echoing in the roaring pulse of blood— _with everything_. That trust, blind and unyielding, burned like a brand where Luke’s hands had cradled his face, where his tears had cut tracks through his blood.

He remembered those broken, pain filled weeks in a German hospital—the muddled months spent on a concoction of pain killers, and the roiling, shaky withdrawal that had come after. It took more than a year for that haunted look to leave Luke’s eyes, and he’d seen it anew in the final moment before the lights went out and he’d left him behind. Luke had known he was leaving, had maybe known all along, and he’d still let him go. 

Slowly dragging the blood slicked blade against the side of his jeans, Brian looked up, holding Fenix’s cruel gaze. “I’m going to enjoy this,” he said, throwing himself forward.

* * *

Dom had seen the crash coming the moment Brian had eased his foot off the accelerator, pleading for him to put on the harness. He’d thrown his arm out in the precious seconds that they drifted, anchoring Brian back against his seat while sand churned through the wheel wells as they swung a wide arc straight into the side of the Torino as it jumped the open maw of the tunnel. The smack of Brian’s head bouncing off the window had been drowned out by the whine of shearing metal and shattering glass, his dead weight limp in Dom's hold.

It took every ounce of strength he had to keep Brian from sliding free of the wreck as they’d flipped through the dunes, before finally coming to a rest upside down, in a haze of dust. He’d held Brian until his arm gave out, guiding his limp form as best he could onto the flattened remains of the roof, only intact because of the roll cage they’d put in all those years ago.

Sucking in panting breaths, sour with the tang of leaking coolant and oil, Dom worked at the bent buckle of the harness—tearing his nails bloody as he tried to get free. From inside the wreck he couldn’t see anything except dirt and shadows, no clue where the Torino had ended up, or Braga, or Fenix.

“Brian,” he hissed, giving up on the buckle, planting one hand on the roof and straining to reach for the blonde. “Come on Buster, wake up,” Dom coaxed, keeping his voice low. Brian lay still, bruises rising in livid shades of red and purple, blood crusting where his lip had been split and where his nose had bled. If not for the shallow rise and fall of his chest, Dom would have feared the worst, every agonized moment he waited for those blue eyes to open stretching toward the unforgiving horizon.

Minutes, hours, there was no telling how long it took before Brian jolted violently back into the world of the waking. He’d shuddered like an engine turning over, eyes snapping open, frost cold and distant. Brian lay frozen like that for a second, lost someplace Dom hadn’t been, and that Brian might never share with him. He surfaced slowly, flexing lean lines of muscle, his jaw working as the look of loss on his face hardened into determination. Before Dom could so much as call for him in protest, Brian had busted his way out, vanishing into the blinding stretch of desert.

Scrambling around the carnage strewn about the car, Dom found a shard of twisted metal just behind his shoulder and he pushed his weight back toward it, dragging the jagged edge of it over the strap of the harness until it cut clean through all the way to the skin of his shoulder, flaying it open. Gritting his teeth against the burn of it, Dom rebalanced his weight onto both his hands, fighting to twist his other arm free of the opposite restraint.

After all but wrenching his shoulder out of place, he crawled hand and knee over the shattered remains of the windshield and out into the dirt. The back of his throat and his nose already ached with the dry heat of it, he’d only just looked up when he caught sight of Fenix cutting a path up the dune, behind him distant trails of dust were rising near the pass beyond the tunnel—more of Braga’s men, cutting a path straight for them, nearly on top of them. Dom yelled out a warning, heart in his throat, as he watched Brian’s distant silhouette tense and topple out of sight under Fenix’s weight.

“Fuck,” Dom gasped, trying to get his feet under himself, but it was slow going in the liquid, hot slide of the sand. Climbing the dune, he was met by the sight of blood, the black blade glinting in Brian’s hand having found purchase somewhere. He and Fenix were locked together, grappling and trading blows, looking for the upper hand, so intent on one another that neither of them had noticed Dom – or Braga.

Barely more than a smudge of movement in the greater bulk of the Torino’s shadow, Braga kept low and moved slow, rounding from the back passenger side up toward the hood where he crouched and took aim, the muzzle of the rifle leveled at Brian where he’d finally manage to pin Fenix—one hand wrapped viciously around his throat the and the other squaring the knife.

Dom staggered a few steps, slipping down the dune, looking for the traction to run. “Brian!” His voice tore from his throat, desperately ragged. In the same instant Brian plunged the blade of his knife into Fenix’s gut, twisting as he went. Startled by his cry, Dom saw Brian’s head jerk up to find him, oblivious to Braga behind him, whose aim swung wide toward the dune where Dom stood.

He’d never heard a sound so final as the echoing crack of the shot—not the roaring rush of the flames that ate his father’s car from the inside out, or the hollow crunch of a socket wrench cracking Kenny Linder’s skull open.

Brian’s scream was something animal, ripped from somewhere deep and unwilling. Dom watched his ice cold, blood splattered façade crack open into agony.

Shakily, afraid of what he’d find—but grateful all the same that it’d been him and not Brian—Dom dared a glance down at himself. He’d expected blood, a hole torn through himself, a death sentence a long time coming—but there was nothing.

Sucking in a heaving breath, Dom looked back up, watched Brian crawling— _clawing_ —his way to his feet, Fenix gasping, gutted, forgotten. He realized then, with startling clarity, that Brian wasn’t looking at him, but past him. Jerking around, Dom turned just in time to see Luke Hobbs, one hand slack around a gun and one clutching at his chest, collapse back into the dirt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter, friends.


	10. Helluva ride

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There was no up or down.
> 
> No color, no gravity, no air.

Sepia and cheap, moments of convenience in an inconvenient world—that’s what they were, what they were supposed to be. When Dom had peeled out in a blaze of orange and green, Brian saw the color of his world go with him, and he’d told himself he’d never give someone that kind of hold on him again.

He’d lied.

Luke was seafoam, cold and bubbling between his toes, a stubbled jaw dragged across his cheek as dawn broke over a night that neither of them had slept through. He was the extra weight of the SIG Sauer strapped to his thigh, the burn of cordite in his nose and a steady hand on his own, peeling the gun from his bloodied hands after his callouses blistered and burst and he couldn’t feel anything but the heat of his chest across his back and the whisper of quiet reassurances in his ear.

Somewhere shadowed and deep, Luke had found the hollow inside Brian where his heart had been, and he’d filled it with pieces of himself day by day. He’d lived there with the ghosts of everyone who’d come before and left him empty. Hearing Dom scream for him had scraped something still raw and broken in Brian, had pulled his attention from Fenix’s blood wet gasps just in time for him to hear the shots.

One, two—rapid report so close the untrained ear they could have mistaken them for a single round.

Braga’s head burst in a spray of pink mist behind him, but Brian’s gaze was fixed on the dune, finding Dom first and then tracking toward the broad swath of shadow looming just past him. He saw the jolt of Luke’s chest, the cave-in of his broad shoulders as his body curled around the impact, and in the split moment that their eyes met the world stopped.

There was no up or down.

No color, no gravity, no air.

Brian couldn’t breathe around the agony of it, the scream torn from the deepest, scarred places where he’d learned that love and loss were one and same. Sand sank beneath his hands, his feet, holding him back even as every piece of himself ached to run, to catch Luke before he fell, like he could take the bullet back if he was fast enough.

Dom was closer, Dom and his team.

Fusco, Mac, Chato, and Elena all poured over the peak of the dune, stark cuts of black against sun-bleached blaze of the dessert, converging on Luke and stealing him from Brian’s sight. He was moving slow, too fucking slow, but when he collided with them it was like barreling shoulder first into a brick wall.

Dom went sprawling into Chato, Elena jumping back out of the way. Brian shoved Fusco aside like he weighed nothing at all, Mac getting an arm around him and hauling him back kicking and swearing, while Brian went to his knees, hands scrambling for purchase on the slick black material of Luke’s shirt. His bloody fingers snagged against the hole the bullet’s path tore and Brian dug in and ripped it clean open from hem to hem. For a sickening moment, his brain forgot the blood on his hands was Fenix’s and he leaned the weight of his body against Luke’s middle trying to stem bleeding that wasn’t there.

“You’re okay, you’re okay,” Brian choked desperately on the words, heart hammering in his ears. He shrugged away the hands that pawed at him, settling over Luke like a starved, rabid dog guarding its last scrap of food. One hand fixed, holding pressure, he dragged the other up and down over the rough grate of Kevlar until he found the slug. Burrowed fully in the plate, pancaked and peeled back like a blossom of lead, Brian picked it out with shaking fingers and finally dragged his eyes up to Luke’s face.

Dark, steady eyes held his, a hot calloused hand reaching out to grasp the back of his head. Brian wrapped his hand around the bullet, shaking as he let himself be pulled down until he could bury his face in the curve of Luke’s throat, closing his eyes against the hot sting of tears. It was the scratch of Luke’s stubble, the warm and welcome throb of his pulse that brought Brian’ world back into focus—his body aching, the sun burning across the back of his neck, and grit and blood wet in his mouth as he sucked in wet, desperate breaths.

“I’ve got you,” Luke murmured, a solid arm wrapping around Brian, holding him together as the panic bled out of him and left a shaking, hollowed shell behind. “That’s why you should wear a vest, you fucking masochist.”

Brian choked on the laugh that bubbled up inside of him, grinning weakly in the shelter of Luke’s shadow, lost on the deep cadence of his voice in his ear like it was a shot of nicotine straight to his shredded nerves. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered.

“You’re not,” Luke said, kissing the corner of his mouth, “and that’s okay.”

Brian swallowed back the guilt of that but didn’t deny it.

Sitting back, he found his team still loosely clustered around them, Dom’s crew hovering behind them on the edge of the dune and starting to look restless. “You ready to get out of this god forsaken desert or what, B?” Chato asked, cocking an eyebrow at him, Mac and Elena still busy keeping Fusco out of swinging distance.

“Yeah,” Brian said, getting his feet under himself and pulling Luke up with him. He stole a glance back over at Dom, holding his gaze for a long moment before tearing away. “Yeah, let’s get clear.”

* * *

Dust crusted American muscle and foreign builds with vaguely illegal street mods were parked in disarray along the flats, the remnants of an impound lot raid that Brian felt a faint pang of jealousy that he hadn’t been a part of. He watched from a distance as Dom folded back in with his family, Mia’s sharp slap resonating in the arid air before she gathered him up like she always would.

Jesse and Leon spared him a few lingering glances, but they all kept their distance, obviously wrong footed that they’d been dragged out here for back-up only to find the fight over before it ever really began.

“Not a bad crew to have at your back,” Mac said quietly, sidling up to Brian’s side. “I can see why you ran with them, they never gave up a word about you, not even the scruffy one.”

Brian cracked a tired, almost wistful smile, “They were my family.”

Mac gripped his shoulder, squeezing gently. When Brian turned to look at him questioningly, Mac just shook his head with a sad little smile and stepped away, leaving space for Luke to slot into. He’d scavenged a spare t-shirt from somewhere, the bullet that had torn through the last one still heavy in Brian’s pocket, he doubted he’d be letting go of it anytime soon.

“Sounds like the FBI and the DEA are having a dick measuring contest about who’s getting the bodies. Figured it’d be safe for the DSS to just hand this one off, let them pick over the carcasses,” Luke said, leaning his weight back against the sleek cut of a dust coated Impala, eyeing Dom and his crew.

“Less paperwork for us,” Brian agreed, following his gaze with a frown, reaching up and toying with the chain of the cross still strung around his neck like an unkept promise. “I’ll have to get my hands on a couple of pardons,” he said, stealing a glance back at Luke. The weight of his gaze traced over him like he was looking for missing pieces, finally settling where Brian’s fingers were knotted around silver links.

“You should go,” Luke said quietly, rolling his weight off the impala.

Brian blinked, brow drawing together in confusion, wondering if he’d missed something. “What?”

“Go,” Luke repeated, jerking his chin toward where Dom and his family were packing up to leave.

“You were right, I love you, Brian,” he took slow breath, his jaw working around the words, “even the part of you that loves him.” Reaching into the pocket of his vest, he fished out the Impala’s key.

“Luke—”

The soft press of warm lips cut him off, Luke’s calloused hand threading through his hair, holding him close for a long moment. When they parted, Luke rested his forehead against Brian’s, dark eyes filled with pained understanding.

“Helluva ride, huh?” he said softly, cradling Brian’s jaw. “Not all of us are lucky enough to get a second chance,” he pressed the key into Brian’s palm, smiling at the beat of hesitation before his fingers closed around them. “Don’t make the same mistake twice, B.”

With that he stepped back, the world opening between them until Brian was left alone and adrift with a key in his hand and a bullet in his pocket. He watched Luke’s back shrink toward where the team was stripping out of gear, packing in, getting ready to leave LA behind as just another case closed. 

* * *

Dom tracked his every step as he crossed the desert, and Brian felt the ache of the hope in his eyes as sharply as if it were his own. Once, a lifetime ago, it had been. “Keep an eye on your mail, the pardons will be the inch thick envelops stamped all over with government seals,” he said, ignoring the weight of the others’ eyes.

“A couple near death experiences and I’m still regulated to snail mail? That’s cold, O’Conner,” Dom mused, but Brian could read his gratitude on his face, that hunted look that lingered just beneath the surface finally erased.

“Your family for mine,” Brian said, reaching up and undoing the clasp of Dom’s cross, handing it back. “Thank you, Dom.”

Dom’s fist closed around it, the corner of his mouth twitching into a resigned smile. “Family dinners are still every Sunday, Buster. You and yours ever find yourself in town, you know where to find us, though it might be polite to knock next time,” he said, the deep drawl of his voice filled with a promise that was everything that Brian had thought he’d wanted.

“You sure you wanna open that door, they’ll eat you out of house and home,” Brian warned, holding Dom’s gaze, surprised that it didn’t hurt to do it.

“Family’s family,” Dom said, lifting his shoulders in a slight shrug, the picture of bloodied and bruise nonchalance. “But if he breaks your heart, I’ll break his neck.”

That finally coaxed a smile out of Brian, “I think you’re just lucky that he didn’t break yours.”

* * *

Brian caught his team as the last trunk slammed closed. Fusco swore, taking a step to cut him off before Mac and Chato herded him away. Elena beamed at him, sunny and knowing as she folded down into the sleek silver Porsche and started back toward the border.

“What are you doing, B?” Luke asked, brow furrowed in confusion.

“Not making the same mistake twice,” Brian answered, pressing the Impala’s key back into his hand, and stealing a kiss. It was a rough collision of sun chapped lips and a clumsy clack of teeth, Luke pulling him in by a fistful of his shirt and anchoring them together. Everything he needed.

“Let’s get out of here,” Brian said, moving around the side of the car and settling into the passenger’s seat.

Luke slid behind the wheel, cocking an eyebrow. “Oh yeah, where are we headed, huh?”

Brian propped his feet up on the dash, sinking into memories of white capped rolling waves and Luke – just Luke—sprawled out beside him on thin linen sheets. “Acapulco was nice this time of year, wasn’t it?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brian and Luke take time off to go bone in Acapulco because as all of you have already figured out, they're in love. Brian will have that bullet melted down into a ring at some point, he's a masochist, but a masochist in love. Fusco will get over his crush eventually, pull his head out of his ass, and figure out Mac's got Feelings for him with a capital F. The DSS will, at some point, make it to a family BBQ with Toretto and Co. where Elena probably falls in love in Dom (or Mia).
> 
> And they all live happily ever after, much like I hope you do. Thank you for all the kudos and kind words, they're the only reason this story grew from some rambling smut into a 20k+ character study of Brian Emotional Time Bomb O'Conner finding a healthy and happy relationship. I live for the feedback, it nourishes my little writing soul.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed the ride as much as I did!


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